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ONE WHO SERVED 




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DiNSMORE Ely 



ONE WHO SERVED 





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It is an investment, not a loss, when a man 
dies for his country " 




CHICAGO 
A. C. McCLURG & CO. 

1919 






Copyright 

A. C. McCLURG & CO. 

1919 



Publislied April, 1919 



JL I W. F. HALL PRINTING COMPANY, CHICAGO 

APR 23 1919 



'aA5153;)4 



PUBLISHER'S FOREWORD 



In the battlefields of France there are thou- 
sands of American graves; graves of our best 
and bravest; sacred places to which we shall 
make pilgrimage in the years to come and over 
which we shall stand with tears on our faces 
and with pride in our hearts. Our heads will 
be bared because the ground is consecrated; 
the last resting place of heroes who gave their 
young and beautiful lives for their country's 
cause. 

Dinsmore Ely was one who gave. His was 
the Great, the Supreme Sacrifice. Never was 
Crusader of old inspired by higher and holier 
motives. In his letters home, which we have 
the privilege of giving to the public, there is 
revealed a knightly soul: the soul of a Bayard 
" without fear and without reproach." 



PRELUDE 

By Dr. James O. Ely 

My Son 

Of old Scotch-Covenanter blood he came. 

Into the Presbyterian Church he was born, 
and at her altar dedicated to the service of his 
God. 

Taken back, when four years of age, to the 
old home in the Pennsylvania hills, he was 
present at the Centennial Celebration of the 
church where his ancestors have worshiped 
for five generations. 

Called on to say his little speech — I can see 
him yet — he marched bravely down the long 
aisle of the crowded auditorium, climbed up 
the pulpit steps, too high for his short legs 
and, facing the great audience, the childish 
treble rang out true and clear, as he volunteered 
for his first service under the banner of the 
Cross : 

My name is Dinsmore Ely, I'm only four years old; 
I want to fight for Jesus and wear a crown of gold ; 
I know he'll make me happy, be with me all the day; 
I mean to fight for Jesus, the Bible says I may. 

vii 



viii PRELUDE 

Twenty years passed. His country called. 
iVmong the first to answer, he volunteered in 
the American Ambulance Field Service that he 
might secure immediate passage to France and 
go at once into active service. Arriving there 
on the fourth of July, 19 17, on the sixth he 
volunteered and was accepted the same day, in 
the Lafayette Flying Corps. 

Taking his aviation training for a fighting 
pilot in the French schools and leaving the last 
school in January, with the reputation of won- 
derful skill as a flyer and aerial gunner, he 
volunteered at once for service with a French 
escadrille, serving and fighting with it from 
January to April in the Toul Sector near Ver- 
dun, when his escadrille was ordered to Mont- 
didier, then the center of the great German 
drive. 

On reaching Paris, he was notified to report 
at American Army headquarters to receive his 
commission in the United States Army. Hav- 
ing received it, at his own request, he was 
assigned as a detached volunteer American 
officer to go into battle at once with his old 
French escadrille. 

On the following day, in closing his last letter 
to his parents, he wrote, in a single short sen- 



PRELUDE ix 

tence, his creed as an American Soldier, and, 
all unknowingly his own epitaph, now carved 
in stone upon his grave in the cemetery at Ver- 
sailles, the heart of France : 

It is an investment, not a loss, 
when a man dies for his country. 

Flying in his Spad to Montdidier, Death met 
him near Villacoublay. 

In his poem, To Whom the Wreath^ an ap- 
peal for the fatherless children of France, he 
wrote : 

Give us to help beat back the Hun, 
But give the French the honor won ; 
Pray God, we'll know when Death is done, 
That France is safe and Children's Homes. 



Death is done, my Soldier Son, and you 
know, aye, you know, that France is safe and 
children's homes. 

And the little mother (ah! well we ken, 
Laddie, you and I, how much she gave herself 
to you) sends you this message: 

" Thank God I gave my boy to be a Soldier," 

and saying it, her face glowed with the pride 
of the mother whose first-born son, flying in the 



X PRELUDE 

heavens, was transfigured before her eyes as he 
soared upwards into the presence of his God. 

We'll nae' forget you, Laddie, and we'll be 
greeting you soon, but while we tarry here, sit- 
ting often alone by the fireside in the old home 
you loved, we won't grieve for you. Laddie, 
and if we are a wee bit lonely at times, we will 
open the treasure box of " pleasant memories " 
you left us and let the joy of them fill our 
hearts. 

Your Father. 

Winnetka, III., March i, igig. 



2Sinsimore €lj> 



Monday, June 2^, IQIJ- 
O great day! O wonderful world! O for- 
tunate boy! Can It be I sail for France — 
France, the beautiful — the romantic — the 
aesthetic, and France the noble — the magnifi- 
cent? Yes, it is true. It is all real. The bab- 
bling crowd and gangplank and piled trunks 
and excited companions — the hissing, roaring, 
thundering whistle, the cry of shrill voices, the 
moving of mass, the joyous and sad faces, 
waving handkerchiefs, passing boats and docks, 
the Battery, Liberty, the open sea — and New 
York fades behind with the pilot boat taking 
back the last letters of frantically written fare- 
wells. The noise is past now; there is a strange 
silence as the gentle swell of a calm ocean comes 
to us; we become aware of the steady throb of 
the engine. People wander about restlessly 
with hands dangling at their sides. They know 
the past; they try to realize the present; they 

1 



DINSMORE ELY 



are ignorant of the future. We are on the great 
Atlantic, we are sailing to France ! 

Tuesday. 
Five-thirty found me wide awake, so I got up, 
and with great difficulty succeeded in making 
the steward de bains understand that I wanted 
a bath. They all speak French very fluently — 
just as fluently as I speak English. Well, I shall 
know how to take a French bath by tomorrow, 
or know the reason why. There were only a 
few on deck, so I had a good walk. Breakfast 
(petite dejeuner) was at six-thirty. Real break- 
fast comes at ten-thirty, but one eats so often 
that it is too tiresome talking about meals. The 
real topic of conversation is seasickness. It is 
enough to make anybody sick. Everyone 
looks at everyone else and at themselves in 
the mirror to see if they can find or create 
symptoms. The ocean is as smooth as glass, 
and still they talk. If I am to be seasick, it 
must come naturally. Darn if I'll create my 
own atmosphere. The boundless blue is the 
most beautiful and serene outlook imaginable. 
It is great. Already I am at perfect rest. After 
breakfast I went right to sleep on the deck. At 
nine there was a Y. M. C. A. French class on 



DINSMORE ELY 



the hatch cover, and we joined them. It is a 
"blab" school in which everybody yells in 
unison with the leader. It is very funny while 
your voice lasts, and remarkably instructive. It 
gives confidence in pronunciation. There are a 
lot of people outside of our party whom I know. 
Probably more will turn up. I have not met 

all our own men yet Well, there 

Is time to burn. The day was mostly spent in 
lounging about. I did not try to make any 
acquaintances. Dave Reed and I were lucky 
enough to get chairs. He Is the " salt of the 
earth." 

Thursday, June 28. 
We had a preliminary life-insurance drill 
today, which consisted in our assembling in our 
proper positions on the deck, and then going to 
dinner. Rumor has it that on the last trip this 
boat had its rudder shot off and that our cap- 
tain sank a submarine. Yesterday a freighter 
passed and they kept our guns trained on it from 
the time it came In sight till it sank away to the 
rear. The Germans are using such boats now 
to sink transports. We are not allowed to open 
portholes, and the lighting of matches and cig- 
arettes Is forbidden on deck at night. This 



DINSMORE ELY 



sounds like war. From the time when I first 
read Treasure Island and Via Crucis I have 
envied those who lived in the ages of pirates 
and crusaders and Indians. I felt that they 
faced real hardships and fought real foes — in 
short, lived life to its fullest — while we, raised 
on milk and honey, were deprived of the right 
to face our dragon and bear our metal. But 
behold! Here we are facing the greatest foe 
of civilization in the greatest war of Christen- 
dom — a war not merely of steel and brawn — 
but a war on and over and under the seas; on 
and around and through the earth — a war in 
which plants and animals and all that is animate 
take part — a war of physical energy, mental 
versatility, and worldly resource taking equal 
part. Here the war god is taking the world at 
its prime — a ^orld thrilling with the vitality 
and enthusiasm of achievement. He is taking 
this world which for thousands of years man 
has labored to cultivate and promote, and is 
marring and crushing it and sending it hurtling 
back through the ages to another hopeless, 
obscure beginning, and we are insects upon its 
surface. Each one of us gambles with Fate, 
putting ingenuity against the laws of chance, to 
see if he will be crushed as the good old world 



DINSMORE ELY 



rolls down the slope of progressive civilization 
into the murky vale of barbarism. And we live 
in this age. If we die, it is for the Cause. If 
we live, it is to see an era of remodeling which 
will be unparalleled. Maps and boundaries, 
governments and peoples, religion and science 
— all will be reconstructed. Terms such as 
"international law," "humane justice," "sur- 
vival of the fittest," "militarism," "monarchy," 
"culture," and — who knows — perhaps even 
" Christianity," may be laid away on the shelf 
as no longer practicable. 

And, oh, the outcome ! Will the lucky ones 
be those who go or those who stay? We are 
told that without doubt we go into transport 
driving. Me for aeronautics. It's no use, I 
cannot think of anything else. It's what I am 
best fitted for, and it is the way I was meant 
to live. Stake all — spend all — lose all, or 
win all — and that is as it should be. 

As per father's advice, I am reading a history 
of France. On my own hook, I am reading a 
Reserve Officers' Handbook. 

This morning we had setting up exercises on 
the foredeck. This afternoon, a doctor of some 
kind or other gave a lengthy discourse on the 
elements of philosophy. It was cloudy, but 



6 DINSMORE ELY 

warm all day, and the sunset was beautiful. We 
gain half an hour a day on the clock. At this 
rate, we will be over in nine days if the weather 
continues. 

Good night. 

Friday, June 2g, igij^ 
This is really Sunday afternoon, but I want 
to keep up the bluff of seeming to write every 
day. As a matter of fact, I do not think that 
a diary should be written every day just because 
the person has resolved to do it. Anything so 
written is bound to be lifeless and uninteresting. 
As a catalogue of events, a diary would be 
monotonous reading. As an outlet to thoughts, 
it should be spontaneous. When events of im- 
portance take place, they will be incentive 
enough to write. This day has really been lack- 
ing in events — let it go at that. 

Saturday, June ^0. 

There are some sad French birds trying to 
sing. It sounds like the first rehearsal of a rag- 
time opera, the cast being depressed by the 
experiences of the night before. I cannot grant 
them much. 

Well, today we had track meet on board. , 



DINSMORE ELY 



Good exercise, entertainment, and time killer 
it was. First came the three-legged race ;^hen 
the sack race; then the Japanese sword fight; 
then the cock fight; then the bar and jack fight; 
and finally the tug of war. Dave Reed and I 
had the three-legged race cinched when I, like 
a poor simp, started to go on the opposite side 
of a post from him and we fell in the final. I 
lost the sack race and won the Jap sword fight. 
I also won the bar and jack fight. They made 
me captain of the M. I. T. tug of war, and that 
is why we lost, because I was the hoodoo right 
through. The thing I did was the only one they 
forgot to award a box of candy for — that is 
my luck — but it was great exercise, and I slept 
better than any time yet. 

A pretty fair wind is coming up. They have 
put two men In Irons I understand; one for in- 
sulting a lady, the other for being drunk. There 
is far too much drinking to please me. I had my 
porthole open last night, and a wave slushed In 
and soaked my bed. This " rocked in the cradle 
of the deep " must stop for the present. 

Sunday, July i. 
And the strange part about it is, that it seems 
like Sunday. The Lord made the water so 



8 DINSMORE ELY 

rough that we almost got seasick. I do not 
know whether it made people more or less re- 
ligious. I didn't go in, because the fresh air 
seemed better for seasickness than a sermon 
would be. The waves were dashing over the 
prow and tossing buckets of water up on the 
deck, so I got on my waterproof outfit. You 
know, there is a system to the waves. The 
longer one watches them, the surer one gets, but 
it's with the waves as with human nature. The 
laws governing them are so complex that one 
cannot discover them in a single short life. 
There was a good singing festival in the eve- 
ning. 

Good night. 

Monday, July 2. 
We have entered the danger zone. The life 
boats are swung out; the guns are uncovered, 
and the men beside them ready. Passengers 
are requested to sleep on deck with their clothes 
on and life preservers near at hand. The day 
is clear and calm and excellent for submarine 
fishing. This evening as the sun was setting, 
two whales spouted on the starboard sky line — 
get that "starboard." Some claimed it was a 
sea battle between two submarines ; others men- 



J 



DINSMORE ELY 9 



tioned water spouts. A few of the biases who 
were nearsighted, said it was imagination. 
Everybody was a trifle nervous. 

The people down in the steerage have great 
times. We sit up and watch them play buzz 
and elephant, and when the idea of the game 
is grasped we imitate them. Buzz is played 
by three men standing in a row. The middle 
man wears a hat. He puts his hands up to his 
mouth and buzzes like a hornets' nest and then 
slaps the face of one of the other men. The 
man who is hit tries to knock off the hat. If the 
buzzer ducks quickly, the hat stays on. It is 
hard to describe, but fun to watch. The result 
is a good complexion. 

Today, I made a pencil sketch, assorted my 
letters of recommendation and catalogued them, 
and read fifty pages of history. Never have I 
been content to do so little. Each day I ap- 
proach nearer to perfect idleness by doing half 
as much as the day before, but at that, I am 
getting in better condition all the time. 

Last evening at ten-thirty I strolled aft and 
looked down on the main deck below. The moon 
was shining dreamily on the smooth, billowy 
ocean, and there was a faint trickle of water at 
the prow. As our ship cut its path in the gossa- 



10 DINSMORE ELY 



mer, phantom couples glided about on the moon- 
lit deck to the soft, tinkling music of the ukulele ; 
gentle voices and soft laughter made you know 
the phantoms were real, yet it was all so like 
dream fairies dancing to a lullaby. It was one 
of those scenes which you recognize on the in- 
stant as a treasure in the scrapbook of memory, 
and you hold your breath to drink your fill at a 
single draught, that the impression may be per- 
fect After the dance we took some 

exercises on the horizontal bar and then, turned 
in on deck. Sleeping in the moonlight is great 
if one has the strength of intellect or fatigue of 
body to keep the mind off those who dwell in 
the moon. Each heart recalls a different name, 
but all sang Annie Laurie. 

Tuesday^ July 3, igi7- 
Well, today was the day a submarine was 
sighted about a mile to port at three In the after- 
noon. It submerged before any shots were 
fired, but the passengers on deck saw it and the 
captain swung the boat sharply to right and 
left. Everybody was pretty much excited. All 
day the calm surface of the ocean has been be- 
specked with drifting boxes, kegs and spars 
from ships, which have been sunk in the vicinity 



DINSMORE ELY 11 

lately. Two dead horses drifted by. We are 
In the Bay of Biscay, and due to arrive at land 
in the mouth of the Garonne River at three 
tomorrow morning, and at Bordeaux at six 
in the afternoon. Today I have written ten 
letters, three days' diary, have made a water- 
color sketch, and done twenty pages of liistory. 
To think we are to be in France tomorrow! 
Why, we are so close that we could row to 
shore now if the blooming Huns didn't shoot 
us in the life boats. 

But I don't believe they'll get us. 

Wednesday, Jidy 4, IQI?- 
We slept out on deck in a fast wind. We had 
a fight with the steward because he wouldn't let 
us bring our mattresses down on deck. We slept 
fitfully during the night, for danger was im- 
minent, and at three o'clock we were awakened 
by hushed excitement. A little sail boat pulled 
alongside and the pilot boarded us. We had 
come to the harbor mouth and lights showed the 
promontories which marked the mouth of the 
Garonne River. Slowly we wended our way 
through the mine fields as the dawn broke 
through the haze ; still we were not safe until the 
net gates of the harbor were pulled behind us. 



12 DINSMORE ELY 

When the day was really with us, French soil 
was a welcome sight on either side. France, 
wonderful France 1 I went down and bathed, 
dressed in khaki uniform, packed my baggage, 
and then came out to enjoy the sights. They 
more than fulfilled all my hopes. The harbor 
was fairly full of all manner of boats, of which 
many were old, four-masted, square-rigged 
schooners. The shores were beautiful. A little 
town, Rpyan, nestled on the shore, its stucco 
tile-roof buildings ranging up from the water in 
picturesque terraces. Spires and towers pro- 
truded above the sky line of trees. Along the 
beach were beautifully colored bathing cano- 
pies. The bay itself was an olive-green. We 
stayed arranging our baggage and then started 
up the river. The countryside on either bank 
was as picturesque as an artist's dream. It is 
the claret land of the chateau country, home of 
the world's finest wines. Wonderful villas nes- 
tle up on the crest of wooded hills and the long 
rows of vineyards sweep down the slope to the 
little peasants' farm houses on the river bank. 
These little farm houses with their small win- 
dows, low doors, and red-tile roofs are the most 
picturesque imaginable. The building material 
is a warm yellow stone or stucco, mellow with 



DINSMORE ELY 13 

age, and the tile of the roofs is stained, 
weathered, and mossgrown, but most beautiful 
and wonderful of all is the natural environment. 
It seems as though nature had absorbed an edu- 
cation in art from the art-loving French. The 
trees in the manner of their growth have caught 
the spirit of refined cultivation, and grown in a 
limitless variety of oddly picturesque forms 
which want no training. A long line of stilted 
poplars with bushy heads march up the roadside 
over a hill. A few gnarled and hump-backed 
beeches squat about the little ferry wharf, and to 
the side are well-rounded clumps of maples and 
beautiful pointed boxwoods, while in the dis- 
tance great bare-legged elms stand close to- 
gether, their great arms waving great masses 
of foliage toward the sky. But it is all beyond 
description. It looks as if it had been laid out 
to the master-plan of a great landscape gar- 
dener. As we go up the river people run to the 
bank and wave and cheer from under the trees. 
We pass neat, newly built factory towns which 
house German prisoners in long barracks. 
Farther along, yellow chalk cliffs loom up on the 
left. Along the ridge are wonderful chateaux — 
not an extravagant show of wealth as in 
America, but substantial old country seats. At 



14 DINSMORE ELY 

the base of the cliffs are little villages and the 
cliffs themselves are dotted with doors and win- 
dows where the peasants have cut cave dwell- 
ings. 

But here we approach Bordeaux. Consider- 
able manufacturing is done in the' suburbs, but 
there seems to be little smoke. Every factory 
has an orchard and garden in its back yard, and 
rows of poplars hide its dump heaps. The river 
is lined with docks and as we come to where the 
large boats are anchored a burst of color in the 
form of flags of all nations greets us, and what 
a pleasant surprise — the Stars and Stripes 
float on the top of every mast. France cele- 
brates the Fourth of July, and from the ferries 
that hurry about us cheer after cheer came up, 
*'Vive r Amerique.'^ The sailors of our ship 
formed a snake dance and went all over the 
decks behind a silk flag singing The Star-Span- 
gled Banner and then the passengers joined in 
answer with the Marseillaise, whistles shriek 
and fog horns bellow as the gangplank shoots 
out. Then down the gangplank, behind the gor- 
geous silk banner, march two hundred and fifty 
khaki-clad Americans and draw up four abreast 
on the platform. 

Crowds lined the streets that lead to the rail- 



DINSMORE ELY 15 

road station. American flags waved from win- 
dows and people cheered and clapped as we 
sang our marching song, Smile, Smile, Smile. 
In the hour before train time we raided the eat- 
ing houses in a riot, as sailors are supposed to 
do when they first reach land. Then we piled 
into our special train and with little delay were 
off in a cloud of conversation. First attempts 
at sleep were not very successful, though we 
were not crowded on the train, and everything 
was very comfortable. At twelve we opened 
our prize package luncheons, and each contained 
a can of sardines, a can of horse meat, a roll, a 
package of raisins, nuts, prunes and figs, mixed, 
and a bottle of lemon pop. After lunch I stood 
for two hours looking at the landscape. The 
moon was shining, and it was almost as bright 
as day. Everything looked so clean and orderly. 
Neat little villages, all white and mystic in the 
moonlight whizzed by. Then I went to sleep on 
the coat rack, and woke up in Paris. 

Thursday, July 5, iQi?- 
"So this Is Paris!" It was the general ex- 
clamation as we stepped off the train. In a few 
moments the crowd had dispersed, and Reed 
and I found ourselves lost. By patient en- 



16 DINSMQRE ELY 

deavor, however, we succeeded in reaching 21 
Rue Raynouard. It is a fine old residence, its 
grounds covering several blocks, situated in the 
very heart of Paris. It is older than the United 
States, and its artificial terraces are covered with 
aged trees. The lawn is now covered with tents 
and barracks, and it is a delightful home for the 
ambulance men. There they come to spend 
their leave and to rest. We spent the day in ar- 
ranging and adjusting ourselves, and lack of 
sleep for the last few nights sent most of us early 
to bed. 

Friday, July 6, IQIJ. 

And now things begin to move. At seven 
this morning we were told that we leave in the 
transport division for the training camp at seven 
tomorrow. We must pack, buy the necessary 
incidentals, and see Paris in twenty-four hours. 
Well, I did all my packing in two hours and had 
the rest of the day to carry out my other plans. 

Yesterday I was talking to another fellow in- 
terested in aviation. He has been here some time. 
He said Dr. Gros, who is head of the Ambu- 
lance Medical Advisory, is vice-president of the 
LaFayette Flying Corps, and is the man to see. 
He gave us our physical examination this morn- 



DINSMORE ELY 17 

Ing, and I made a date to see him at one-thirty 
this afternoon. He gave me an examination for 
the aero corps at two, and I passed it with ease. 
At three I was released from the service of the 
American Ambulance Corps by the help of a 
letter from Dr. Gros. At four I made out my 
application for the LaFayette corps, and so in a 
day was accomplished what I had allowed six 
months for. My plans go like clockwork. For- 
tune runs ahead of me, and everything turns out 
better and quicker, but just as I surmised it 
would. Dr. Gros is a personal adviser to the 
flying corps, and he is a wonderful man. He 
talks to you with the interest of a father and the 
intimacy of a friend. In asking his advice as 
to the advisability of my making the immediate 
change, he, a member of both organizations, 
said that every American's duty was the place 
of highest efficiency, and that if I were fitted for 
aviation it would be wrong to waste my time in 
the field service, and he also said it was for me 
to know if I were fitted for the higher service. 
Well, I have known that for some time, and the 
American ambulance officials were very cordial 
in their releasing me. They said that aviation 
was undoubtedly a higher service, and that they 
would be glad to take back into their service 



18 DINSMORE ELY 

anybody with my spirit. (This was not a com- 
pliment.) It is what I have wanted to do, but 
it keeps me from being stranded in case of some 
unforeseen failure in aviation. 

I still cannot believe the extent of my good 
fortune. While in Dr. Gros's office I talked with 
a man who came over on the Chicago which ar- 
rived four days before the Rochanibeau. He 
said Al Winslow and his friend had come over 
on that boat, and that they were staying at the 
Hotel Cecilia. As I could not stay at 21 Rue 
Raynouard, I immediately went over and signed 
up for a room at fourteen francs a day — a 
room and meals, for two dollars and eighty 
cents. I did not see Al, but I found he was 
there. That evening the '^Tech" Unit took 
dinner with Mr. Lansingh, who came over to 
establish Technology Headquarters in France. 
After dinner we went down to some Folies, and 
took in some speedy Paris life. 

Saturday, July y, iQi?- 
I stayed last night with the bunch and saw 
them off this morning. They congratulated me 
on my nerve, and said they wished they could do 
the same. There was much picture taking, and 
good-byes. I hated to part from the bunch, for 



DINSMORE ELY 19 

they were a fine set of fellows, but there are 
good friends everywhere. After attending to 
several things, which they were forced to leave 
undone, I took my things to the hotel. The 
Cecilia is a clean little family hotel occupied by 
Americans. It is in a nice neighborhood, within 
half a block of the Etoile. The Arc de Triomphe 
of Napoleon is in the Etoile and forms the hub 
of a wheel from which radiate many beautiful 
boulevards and avenues. I will send a circular 
of the hotel. It seems that It will take a week 
or ten days to hear from my application. What 
could be better? Had I remained in the A. A. 
C. I should have left the city immediately. As it 
Is, I am forced to remain ten days and get an 
introductory insight into the wonders of Paris — 
and It has its wonders. To further my luck, I 
find that the LaFayette Fund pays twelve francs 
(two dollars and forty cents) on our keep while 
we are waiting acceptance. That makes food 
and lodging cost me forty cents a day. As soon 
as we are accepted, we receive a commission of 
two hundred francs a month (forty dollars) and 
all expenses. 

Maybe all things come around to those who 
wait, but that does not prove that those who 
seek shall not find. 



20 DINSMORE ELY 

Sunday. 

I slept late and then took a walk in the Bois de 
Boulogne. It is beautiful — a park which re- 
sembles a forest in the density of its foliage — a 
wondrous, natural feeling retained in spite of 
the finish of it all. I made a sketch of the Arc 
de Triomphe, and a woman came along and 
charged me two cents to use a park bench. 

In the evening I met a French gentleman who 
walked about six blocks helping me look for a 
store to buy a map of the city. Most obHging ! 
His name was Crothers. He told me of an 
English club that I would probably enjoy, and 
said if I needed help to call on him at his office. 
I invited him around to my hotel without smil- 
ing. The movies were all right. The Hunch- 
back of Notre Dame was playing. 

Monday. 
This morning I did some shopping. A shirt, a 
pair of garters and another sketchbook. Then 

I walked all over town I walked some 

twenty miles or more in a vain endeavor to un- 
derstand the plan of Paris and to see Notre 
Dame. I found the cathedral about four-thirty, 
and went in. I cannot describe it, but it was 
surely wonderful. The exterior was a trifle dis- 



DINSMORE ELY 21 

appointing, but the interior — mammoth piers, 
soaring arches, gorgeous stained-glass windows 
— all gloomy and magnificent — all solemn and 
religious. The hollow echo of footsteps, the 
distant passing of flickering candles and the low 
chant of monks — no wonder the Catholic faith 
is with us yet. With such monuments and such 
mystery, there will always be those to sign the 
cross and bend the knee in reverence. 

Tuesday, July lo. 
It was my plan, to go to Versailles today, but 
Mr. Lansingh called up and asked me to send a 
package to one of the boys. By the time I had 
attended to that the morning was half gone, so I 
returned to the hotel for lunch. In the after- 
noon exercise was wanted, so I went out to the 
Bois de Boulogne and after' walking round the 
pond, hired a boat. In coming up to the dock, I 
had noticed a young lady, very American look^ 
ing, gazing at me with a twinkle in her eye. 
When I looked again she smiled, as one glad 
to see a friend. I said, "What's the matter? 
Do you speak English? Come on for a ride." 
She said, "Oh, the children will talk about it." 
She was very refined and pretty and very Eng- 
lish, and it seems she was a governess for these 



22 DINSMORE ELY 

French children. She would not come until I 
had taken a turn around the pond. Then she 
did come and was very entertaining. She told 
me what she thought of French, English, and 
American men and women ; how the different so- 
cieties seemed to differ. It is the most sensi- 
ble bit of conversation I have had since the voy- 
age. I am going to take advantage of being 
away from home to meet all the various kinds of 
people. Such incidents are the punctuation 
marks of travel. 

Wednesday, Jidy ii. 
The morning was spent in writing my diary. 
At lunch a couple of the men asked if I were 
going to Versailles, so I joined them. We went 
direct to the Tower, where a guide was waiting, 
who had made arrangements to visit an aero- 
plane depot. We took a hurried view of the 
grounds, and then by taxi went to the Buc Far- 
man Depot, where aeroplanes are made and 
turned over to the government. The guide in- 
troduced us to three aeronauts, who showed us 
about and ended up by asking if we wouldn't 
fly across to another depot in some new ma- 
chines. Did we refuse? Well, it was wonder- 
ful. Sitting in the long, dragon-fly body, there 



DINSMORE ELY 23 

was a moment to think. Then the pilot gave the 
signal for the blocks to be taken away, and like 
some animal the machine snorted and quivered 
as if unable to realize It was released. Then 
there was a bound; a crashing roar of wind 
passed my helmet; a blurr of ground as we sped 
along the turf; and then suddenly all vibration 
stopped. The ground flew away beneath, and 
we mounted. I had thought to see things di- 
minish gradually, but the earth fell away. We 
skimmed a grove of trees. I glanced up at the 
pilot to see how he controlled, and when I 
looked down again I noticed a team of white 
flies drawing a match head along a crayon mark. 
It was a team of horses on a country road. Then 
the sense of speed was lost and we seemed to be 
drifting along like a cloud. That rush of air 
had been caused only by the motor. Then I saw 
our shadow cross a large field In three seconds, 
and I decided we were still moving. A design In 
the map below proved to be the gardens of the 
palace. 

The great lagoon looked like a veined set- 
ting of lapis lazuli. Still we were going up, 
but there was no fear, no doubt, nor distrust. 
It was all wonderful sport. How could anyone 
think of It but as a sport? I was so elated that 



24 DINSMORE ELY 

I almost missed the city of Paris as it passed 
beneath. 

Then we came Into some light clouds. Up 
there the sky line, the horizon, was made of 
clouds that seemed to encircle us at the edge of a 
crater, with the multicolored molten lava be- 
neath. Then the plane began to rock, as on a 
choppy sea, and we encountered what they call 
"bumps." All of a sudden the engine seemed 
to stop. There was a queer sensation of having 
left something behind, and before I realized It, 
we were almost on the ground, having dropped 
two thousand feet In less than a minute. The 
landing was like passing from asphalt to cobble- 
stone pavement in an automobile. We had been 
in the air twenty minutes, and had gone thirty- 
two miles. When I found that out, I felt like a 
wireless telegram. And then what did those 
cordial French aeronauts do but take us home in 
a taxicab and invite us to lunch with them at 
their homes next day. At supper we were the 
heroes, the envy of the table, and it was just 
luck that I was included In the party. 

Thursday. 
We landed at Versailles at 1 1 A.M. and were 
met by the aviators. My host's name is Louis 



DINSMORE ELY 25 

Gaubert. He is a splendid, unassuming man. 
He took me out to a little country home, a few 
miles from Buc, where his wife and little three 
year old girl met us a hundred yards from the 
gate. Both were pretty and affectionate and 
thoroughly French. Gaubert himself speaks 
poor, broken English, which he learned in the 
States some years ago. He is the oldest living 
French aviator, and his wife was probably the 
first French woman in an aeroplane. They had 
a garden and arbors and chickens and dogs and 
rabbits and birds and a player piano and a Ford 
and trellis roses — in fact, everything that a man 
could desire. To be taken into such a home is to 
me the greatest favor. They were so free and 
hospitable and so entertaining. On our way to 
the aviation field Gaubert took his wife and 
mother-in-law and baby to the station to go to 
Paris. They let me hold the little girl going Into 
the station, and twice she reached up and kissed 
me on the cheek. It was surely a happy day. 
Again we went high over Paris on the cloud 
path, and again rode home in a taxi. 

Saturday, July 14. 
Up at six to get down to see the great parade. 
A boy by the name of Bosworth went down 



26 DINSMORE ELY 

with me. The crowds were twenty deep about 
the streets, so we went up to the sixth story of a 
flat and asked if they had room. They said 
their windows were full, but the man below had 
a large balcony. He took us in on hearing the 
words "American aviator" and treated us with 
the utmost cordiality. The parade was good, 
and enthusiasm ran high. As the soldiers passed 
along, the crowds threw them trinkets, fruit, and 
money. When it was over, we were unable to 
find a means of conveyance, and as it was too 
far to walk, we asked the man who was just 
getting into a Red Cross automobile with his 
wife, and an American flag, if he would take us 
up to the Etoile. He said "Yes" and again 
"American aviator" was the key. By the time 
we had reached our destination we had offered 
the lady flowers to pay for the ride. He had 
offered to take us out to Versailles as an after- 
noon ride. We had accepted on condition that 
he take dinner with us. We had dinner at a 
regular Parisian restaurant. As he talked flu- 
ently with his hands, I could follow his French, 
and then a strange thing occurred. A young 
lieutenant in French uniform with a more dis- 
tinguished than strong face, came in with a 
rather doubtful-looking girl and sat down next 



DINSMORE ELY 27 

to me. I could see the man's face. He seemed 
of good blood. He watched our new friend 
closely. While we were eating dessert our new 
friend was talking to Bosworth, the officer 
winked at me a warning, and leaning over said, 
in poor English, " Do not go with that man, he is 
a bad man." As we left the dining room I re- 
mained behind and talked with the officer. He 
said to come and see him, and we made a date 
for Monday. From then on I was on my guard. 
We had a very pleasant day, but our friend was 
so strenuously entertaining as to be tiresome, so 
I declined further engagements with him. 

The gardens and buildings are very wonder- 
ful, and I am going out there more. I took a 
number of pictures and developed them in the 
evening. Both of my cameras are giving ex- 
traordinary results, and I am delighted. I shall 
not try to send my pictures or films home for the 
present until I make sure that my letters carry 
safely. I shall await with interest the outcome 
of my interview with the French lieutenant. 

Sunday. 
This morning I went over and helped Mr. 
Lansingh get settled in the new "Tech" apart- 
ment. It is a Technology Club at Paris, and a 



28 DINSMORE ELY 

very gorgeously furnished apartment it is. 

This afternoon I walked ten miles around that 
wonderful park.^ They have great groves 
of Norway pine as large and straight and thickly 
distributed as the grove from which our cabin 
logs were cut, and right near by are oaks and 
beech and locust and bay trees, and under the 
pine trees is wonderful turf, natural and un- 
spoiled by the needles. 

Good night. 

Monday J July i6. 

In the morning I did a little shopping, and 
then met my friend. Sergeant Escarvage. He 
spent two hours and a half showing me through 
the National Museum of Arts and Sciences. 
There were experimenting offices and labora- 
tories for testing material. He showed me the 
gas-mask construction. He speaks a trifle more 
English than I do French, so it is very interest- 
ing each trying to make the other understand. I 
asked him up to the hotel for Wednesday sup- 
per. He accepted. 

I like him very much. His superpolish seems 
natural. His friendship is sincere; his sympa- 
thy unusual. 

* Bois de Boulogne. 



DINSMORE ELY 29 

Tuesday, July 17. 

It rained, and I read The Dark Flower by 
Galsworthy. His style is clean-cut and master- 
ful. The story weighed on me. I walked ten 
miles and could not sleep. What this war does 
to people's lives ! 

My papers came today. 

Wednesday, Jidy 18. 

I spent the morning in getting some more 
papers signed in final preparation for going to 
Avord. We are to leave Saturday. In the 
afternoon I went down and saw the buildings 
about Napoleon's tomb. The tomb itself was 
not open. There were several Boche planes 
down there. They do hot look any better to me 
in point of construction and workmanship than 
do those of the Allies. I think that rumor was 
bull. 

Escarvage and I went for a walk and ended at 
the hotel. After supper he took me to the 
Fem'ina Revue. He is interested in music and 
photography. He wants to help teach me 
French and insisted that I write to him in French 
and he would correct my letters and return them. 
He also said that when I come to Paris on 
my first leave I should stay with him at his 



30 DINSMORE ELY 

apartment and we would go to the theater and 
to visit some places of historical interest. 

Thursday. 
Again the morning was spent in getting clear- 
ance papers, the afternoon in packing, and the 
evening in a good walk. The pictures I devel- 
oped make the results of both my cameras very 
good and satisfying. 

Friday. 
The day went slowly. I just waited around, 
read a little, wrote a little, sent a box of candy 
to the aviator Gaubert and his family, and slept. 

Saturday. 
And we are off to the Front. We took off on 
the 8.12 from the Gare de Lyon. The trip was 
good and the country beautiful as ever. We 
stopped at a garlic hotel at Bourges and then 
proceeded to Avord where a truck met us and 
took us to the. camp — and it is a wonderful 
camp. After registration we had a few hours 
before dinner to look around. The buildings 
are well built, the grounds are clean, and, outside 
of a few insignificant lice, the barracks are very 
comfortable and the grounds so extensive that 



DINSMORE ELY 31 

it would take a week to explore them. They 
stretch away for miles on every side. Well- 
made roads lead to the various camps and here 
and there hangars form small towns. Motor 
cars and trucks carry the officers about and the 
troops of aviators are marching on and off duty 
— but most wonderful are the machines them- 
selves. Imagine a machine leaving the ground 
every fifteen seconds! Do you get that? Four 
a minute ! The air is so full of machines that 
it seems unsafe to be on the ground. The en- 
vironment is lovely; the weather pleasant; the 
fields are covered with clover, buttercups, and red 
poppies. To those who can find pleasure in 
nature this cannot become monotonous, but all 
bids fair to be very pleasant. The first meal was 
very good, thanks to the numerous pessimists 
who had prepared me for indigestible food. 
From the first night I had been assigned to a bar- 
racks with a delightful bunch of men. The 
prospects are of nothing but the brightest. 

Sunday, July 22, igij. 
The day was spent in resting and becoming 
settled. I went to the station at Avord to get my 
bed, only to find that it woul'd not arrive for sev- 
eral days. When I got home the bunch had 



32 DINSMORE ELY 

gone out to the Penguin field to make their first 
sorties. I hurried out and got there just in time 
to answer roll call, but we failed to get a chance, 
so we came back disappointed. We ate bread 
and soup at the ordinaire and turned in. 

Monday. 
There was a lecture this morning on various 
types of aeroplanes. In the afternoon we went 
out and I had my first sortie in the Penguin. 
Well, it was rare sport. A Penguin is a year- 
ling aeroplane, with its wings clipped. It has 
a three-cylinder motor and a maximum speed of 
thirty-five miles an hour. A person gets into 
the darned thing and it goes bumping along the 
ground, swinging in circles and all kinds of curli- 
cues. It was thrilling and fascinating, but the 
conclusion derived is that flying is not one of the 
primal heritages, but a science with a technique 
which demands schooling and drill. It is a thing 
to be learned as one learns to walk or swim. It 
is necessary to develop a whole new set of mus- 
cles and brain cells. 

Tuesday. 
I am reading a book on aeroplanes, which is 
of benefit in my technology training. 



' DINSMORE ELY 33 

My second sortie today was not so good as 
the first, but I understand that that is usual. I 
saw a Nieuport fall and had all the thrills of 
witnessing a bad smash-up. We saw it coming 
for the ground at an angle of thirty degrees. It 
happened in just three seconds. In the first sec- 
ond, the machine struck the ground and sprang 
fifteen feet into the air; in the second it lit again 
and plunged its nose down; and in the third 
it turned a straight-forward somersault and 
landed on its back. It was over a block away, 
and as I was nearest, I reached it first. A two- 
inch stream of gasoline was pouring from the 
tank. When I was twenty-five feet from the 
plane the man crawled out from under it. Well, 
I had expected to drag out a mangled form, and 
it was some joyous thrill to see him alive. And 
he was cool — he took out a bent cigarette and 
lighted it and his hand did not shake a bit. The 
strap and his helmet had saved him. Every- 
body was happy just to know that he was not 
hurt. The machine had its tail, onq wing, the 
propeller, and running gear all smashed. 

Wednesday, 
And this morning when the men came in from 
the morning classes they reported five Bleriots 



34 DINSMORE ELY 

and one Penguin smashed. One Bleriot dove 
and turned turtle. Another lit in a tree. The 
other smashed running gears; and the Penguin 
ran through a hangar. Not long ago a Bleriot 
dove through the roof of a bakery at seventy 
miles per hour. In all these accidents not a man 
was scratched — absolutely miraculous, but the 
conclusion is encouraging and reassuring, for it 
shows how much better the chances are than we 
figure on. I didn't get a sortie today. 

Thursday. 
No sortie today either. Went over to see the 
construction of the Lewis machine gun. Just 
before going to bed a machine flew over camp. 
A big white light and its red and green side 
lights — then suddenly, as we watched, a rocket 
shot out and downward in a graceful curve and 
burst three times in colored lights — truly a 
pretty sight, and as wonderful as the stars them- 
selves. 

Friday. 

We have a regular program now. We rise 

at twenty-five minutes to seven and have drill 

for ten minutes. It is just a form to get the men 

out of bed. Then I come back, bathe, eat a crust 



DINSMORE ELY 35 



of war bread and read or write until ten o'clock, 
when the first heavy meal is served. Another 
form drill, lasting fifteen minutes, comes at a 
quarter past eleven. There is often a lecture at 
twelve o'clock, and the men are supposed to 
sleep from one till three. At three they may 
have another class of instructions. At five sup- 
per is served. At five-thirty the troop leaves 
for the Penguin field. We are there till nine-fif- 
teen and return for soup and bread and jam at 
ten o'clock. 

This afternoon I had my third sortie in the 
Penguin and I begin to feel at home in it. We 
have been smashing one a day lately — running 
gears or something. 

I received my first letter from home since leav- 
ing New York. It was from father, written on 
June 28 — just one month. I hope my letters 
home have not been so delayed. 

Some of the boys answered an advertisement 
for les marraines, girls living in France who 
would correspond with boys in the army, so I 
made application. It will be interesting to 
watch the outcome. 

Tomorrow I shall print my pictures and send 
some home. I have not taken many since com- 
ing here, because I figure that there will be so 



36 DINSMORE ELY 



many more interesting aeroplane pictures offer 
themselves. 

The French Government pays us twenty-five 
cents a day and I spend that on candy. I am get- 
ting an awful appetite for candy. I can hardly 
wait till the meal is over to eat some, though it 
isn't very good candy at that. It is because there 
is no sugar in the food, I guess. 

Ecole d^ Aviation, Avord (Cher). 
Dear Little Mother : 

I am letting my diary slide for a few days and 

writing letters instead I do not care 

how often you people write to me. It doesn't 
matter much what you say — it is just the sen- 
sation of receiving letters. I had a letter from 
my marraine (godmother) yesterday. Some of 
the fellows sent their names and mine to the 
doctor who made introductions by correspond- 
ence to some of the well-to-do Parisians, and 
as a result I now have as godmother a lady of 
about fifty who has two married daughters. She 
is of French family, but was born in Illinois. 
She married a Frenchman. Her home is in 
Paris, but she is now in their country villa at 
Croix-de-Brie. 

We have had much rain in the last week, and 



DINSMORE ELY 37 

there has not been much doing. I now have 
seven of the necessary sorties required in the 
Penguin class. The classes are large, and the 
machines break quite often. That is why prog- 
ress is slow. I think I am doing somewhat bet- 
ter than the average, but it is too early to tell 
much about it. I am anxious to progress faster, 
but one must wait his turn, and they say it is 
better to go slow. There is no reason why I 
should not make a good flyer. 

Your Son. 

Tuesday, July ^i, igiy. 

Now I have forgotten the last day and page 
of my diary, and so I'll just write today. Well, 
I got kicked out of my bed because the man 
whose bed I was using returned, and I had to 
go into another room because there was no more 
room in that one. I now have a nice new bed. 
That is the second time I have had to change 
rooms and roommates. Oh, well. 

I have made a regular discovery. One of the 
boys has a whole set of Balzac's works. I shall 
devour them. I have read a book a day for 
three days now; all my spare time I read. The 
weather is too hot to enjoy beating about; also 
I do not want to risk being handed a prison sen- 



38 DINSMORE ELY 

tence for being out of place. They have strict 
rules and lax enforcement, but they get men now 
and then. 

I had a letter today from Gaubert thanking 
me for the candy and asking me to come to 
stay at his house while in Paris. 

Oh, I have meant to say that nothing was ever 
better named than the comfort bag. In hotel or 
In camp it is equally good, and nothing is lacking, 
Marjorie's wash rag is the best I've ever had. I 
didn't suppose a knitted wash rag would be any 
good. Another thing that fills the bill is my 
suitcase. It is the best looking and lightest one 
I've seen on the trip. Maybe more of my equip- 
ment will be of use than I had thought. 

August 10, 1917- 
Dear Father : 

In reading The Gallery of Antiquities by Bal- 
zac, I came across this passage which made me 
think of your parting admonition : 

Remember, my son, that your blood is pure 
from contaminating alliances. We owe to the 
honor of our ancestors sacredly preserved the 
right to look all women in the face and bow the 
knee to none but a woman, the king, and God. 
Yours is the right to hold your head on high 
and to aspire to queens. 



DINSMORE ELY 39 

I can say for the first time in my life with as- 
surance that I know the honor of the family is 
safe in my sword. So much for my experiences 
— and I aspire to a queen. 

Progression in my work is steady; the upper 
classes are so full as to retard our immediate 
advancement. Our class is an exceptionally 
good one. I changed from the evening to the 
morning class some days ago, and I find it was 
a good move. The morning class is better, and 
advances faster. I am reading all the literature 
on aviation that is to be had about camp. I 
wish you would communicate with the M. I. T. 
Aviation Department and get from them a list 
of the books that they are using there in the 
study of aviation. From this list strike out The 
Aeroplane Speaks by Barber, and Military Aero- 
planes by G. C. Loening; also strike from the 
list all books published before 19 15, and from 
the remainder you can judge what will be of use 
to me. They should not be so elementary as 
to be a waste of time, nor so technical from a 
mathematical standpoint as to be boresome. 
Compact, reliable, up-to-date as possible infor- 
mation is what I want. If any of these seem 
worth sending, do them up in separate bundles 
and mail them at intervals of three or four days 



40 DINSMORE ELY 

apart to prevent their all being lost. The less 
bulky, the more practical for my use. Mail 
these books to me — c/o Mr. Van Rensselaer 
Lansingh, Technology Club of Paris, 7 Rue 
Anatole de la Forge, Paris, France. 

Mr. Lansingh keeps in constant touch with 
"Tech" students and communicates with their 
parents and with the Institute in case of accident. 
I will send my films to him and he will keep them 
after development. They are charged to my 
account and a set of prints returned to me. I 
will forward these prints to you. The films will 
be filed at the " Tech " Club of Paris. Any mail 
or cables sent to that address will be immediately 
forwarded to me, entailing about two days' 
delay. I have opened a checking account, and 
deposited 1,000 francs with the Guaranty Trust 
Company of New York. 

August 14, igi7' 
Dear Little Mother : 

Nothing much has happened lately, so I have 

not been moved to write. You will remember 

I told you about getting a marraine; how she 

was born in Illinois, has two married daughters, 

lives in her country home at present, but will be 

in Paris during the winter months. Well, in 



DINSMORE ELY 41 

her second letter she asked me if she could send 
me tobacco or anything else I might need, so I 
told her to send me candied fruit and golf stock- 
ings. They arrived yesterday. Say, but that fruit 
was good, and the stockings were the best I ever 
have seen. Dark brown, with a fancy top — not 
too brightly colored, of light and dark green. 
They are most too good to wear around here 
with my old khaki suit. 

Most of the men are buying uniforms and 
thirty-five dollar aviator boots and eight dollar 
belts and all that, but I think it will be better 
to wait. If the United States takes us over. It 
will mean another change of uniform. Perhaps 
my uniform will come In after all. At all events, 
I'll have to buy a light serge uniform which will 
be cool enough for summer wear and dressy 
enough to wear when accepting Invitations. 
They spend a good deal of money on clothes 
here, and dress pretty lively when they go to 
Paris. Around camp, though, there Is no uni- 
form or discipline. We wear black and brown 
leather coats; red, black, brown, yellow, and 
blue trousers; sweaters, flannel shirts; and green 
vests and hats ranging from sombreros to the 
Turkish fez. This Is a division of the Foreign 
Legion, you know. All manner of strange peo- 



42 DINSMORE ELY 

pie are to be seen here. The refectoire, called 
the ordinaire is the place where we feed, in the 
animalistic sense. A crowd gathers about the 
steps as meal time approaches, and clamors in a 
multitude of tongues. There are carefully 
dressed Frenchmen, with sensitive features and 
dainty Httle moustaches. There are heavy fea- 
tured Frenchmen, with coarse manners and 
rough attire. There are sallow-skinned Portu- 
guese in dandy dress who have an air of dis- 
sipated ennui, and yet have a solicitous cordial- 
ity which makes them strange and out of place. 
There are dark-brown Moroccans and Turcos 
with red fezzes, Assyrian beards, and brass 
studded belts. The Russians, with their gray- 
green sweat shirts belted at the waist, their 
bakers' hats with highly colored diadems in 
front, and their loose black knee boots, stand 
aloof and talk little, but with vim. They some- 
what resemble Irish in. their features; and in the 
heart of the crowd, pressing close against the 
doors, as eager and clamorous and more rough 
in action than all, are the Americans, pushing, 
scrambling, elbowing, to be first into the ordi- 
naire. Only their inexhaustible good humor 
prevents one from criticizing them. Once in- 
side, there is a great scramble for the head of 



DINSMORE ELY 43 

the table. Men jump up on the benches and step 
on and over the tables with their muddy hob- 
nailed shoes in a vain endeavor to arrange them- 
selves favorably. Then enterprising mechanics, 
who get one franc per person per month for 
their service, bring in stacked pans of food. 
These are large receptacles of a gallon capacity, 
and there is one stack to each table. In the top 
pan is meat — usually beef cut in chunks, some- 
times tough, sometimes tender, always nourish- 
ing, never savory. In the second are boiled or 
baked or French fried potatoes, or beans or car- 
rots, or melange, similar to succotash. In the 
third and largest container is soup, which tastes 
better by artificial light, and is always the same. 
A weak solution of beans and cabbage and pota- 
toes with scraps of war bread afloat. This is 
seldom tasted, and passes on from week to week 
until it becomes richer from many cookings, and 
is finally eatable. At the end of the meal comes 
the dessert, and it is the redeeming feature. 
Each man has a good big spoonful of confiture 
— apple butter. 

The men at the head of the table have heap- 
ing platefuls of food; those in the middle get 
theirs level full; those at the end are dependent 
upon the foresight and generosity of those above 



/ 



44 DINSMORE ELY 

them. But the food is wholesome and clean, 
and if a man eats to live it will nourish him 
satisfactorily. For those who live to eat, there 
are high-priced restaurants just over the fence 
which are run with the sole idea of getting the 
soldiers' money. 

This morning an order was issued that thirty 
of the men in the Penguin class who have had 
less than thirteen sorties are to leave for Tours 
at two o'clock. That is another school. My 
changing to the morning class enables me to get 
seventeen sorties, so I remain here. I am glad 
for that, because it means starting to learn on 
a new kind of aeroplane. 

I could not make the facilities for printing 
pictures here suffice, so I have sent the films to 
Paris. It will be a couple of weeks before I can 
send them to you. I have taken very few pic- 
tures here, but intend to take some soon. The 
country hereabout is very beautiful and fertile ; 
the sunsets have been simply glorious. The 
country is moist and rich in color. I am not 
much pleased with the group of men In this bar- 
racks and will change as soon as there is a va- 
cancy In the one I like, but I sleep and read and 
walk. I am reading Catherine de' Medici, by 
Balzac. It is rich in the history of Paris. Tell 



DiNSMORE ELY 45 



father to write me whenever he can. I wish you 
and father would get a little vest-pocket camera 
like mine and send me pictures whenever you 
can. I find that I have a passion for photo- 
graphs. Those that I have I look at almost 
every day. 

It's good to hear that you are enjoying your- 
self at Black Oak. I hardly think you will be 
able to be miserable because Bob and I are not 
with you. Send any newspaper clippings of in- 
terest. 

A man just came into the room with a rumor 
that sixty more men are to leave here in a couple 
of days, but does not say where they are going. 
At next writing I may be almost anywhere. 
Guess I'll scout around and get some pictures 
right away. Well, much love to you, Mother 
dear, and to father, and to everyone else. 

Your loving son, 

DiNSMORE. 

Boiirges (Cher), August ig, 1917- 
Dear Mother: 

Day before yesterday I got permission to 
come down to Bourges where the great ca- 
thedral of St. Etienne is. It is the third best 
cathedral in France, and is simply magnificent. 



46 DINSMORE ELY 

I stayed till yesterday afternoon, and then re- 
turned to camp. Bourges is fifteen miles from 
Avord. Then I found we had repos and did 
not go to class till tomorrow evening, so I came 
right back to Bourges on the first train. I will 
have been in the town two days and a half — 
well, nothing could be better. The town is built 
upon gentle slopes which fall away from the ca- 
thedral In its center. Houses are here ranging 
from just before the war back to 1200 a.d., 
perhaps further. Hundreds of architectural 
treasures are hidden in its narrow streets. A 
town of 45,000, it contains more good architect- 
ural designs than Chicago. But the cathedral — 
oh, how wonderful! I went straight to it, led 
by its towers showing above the house tops, and 
when it came Into full view I stopped still and 
held my breath. Ponderous, massive, standing 
elegant, magnificent, mounting upward, delicate, 
airy in the skies. It held me and pressed so 
upon my feelings. What was It? The wonder- 
ful spirit of endeavor and faith and love of a 
hundred generations trying to please their God. 
The genius of seven centuries bending its power 
to produce a single masterpiece and then the en- 
deavor of one small human being to grasp all 
this and hold It In one glance — as the sound of 



DINSMORE ELY 47 

a hundred thousand voices cheering their parting 
army. It made me want to cry. I walked all 
around it twice. I took pictures of it from every 
angle in case something should happen to it or 
me. Then I went in. Oh, why try? It cannot 
be described. No wonder they kneel. My 
thoughts whispered to each other in awe. Faint 
glows in rainbow hues from the gorgeously 
stained windows played in the distance among 
the forest of columns. Across the altar, which 
seemed like a dwarf shrine in a giant citadel six 
candles twinkled, as if to demonstrate the small- 
ness of the life of man. There before the altar 
knelt a priest, small, with bowed head. Then 
there was a stir in the air, slight at first, but 
growing with rising and falling crescendo, and 
the monotonous drone of the chant echoed and 
reechoed among the columns till it filled the 
whole vault, and then died away into religious 
silence. I turned and mounted the winding stair 
into the bell tower, counting the steps — four 
hundred and six — four hundred and seven — 
oh, here was something that I could grasp and 
describe. There were four hundred and seven 
six-inch steps. The tower was two hundred and 
four feet high. 

The fine old warden of the keys told me he 



48 DINSMORE ELY ^^ 

couldn't take me over the place without a per- 
mit from the architect of the city, so I went to 
the architect's home, only to find him out. When 
I returned to the cathedral, disappointed, the 
old man said that if I would return at nine in the 
morning he would take me through. At nine 
in the morning we started. We started up the 
tov/er and branched off at one of the little doors 
into the clerestory that led all around the inside 
of the church nave. Here we saw the organ; 
From here we mounted a dark, uneven passage 
within the walls which brought us out to the low- 
est stage of the roof, where the bases of the 
flying buttresses rest. We traversed the gutter, 
which was really a promenade, to the choir end 
of the cathedral. Here again we wound up a 
circular stairs within a great buttress pier and 
came out on the little narrow stair cut right up 
the flying buttress span to the main roof. Here 
we entered another little door, and found our- 
selves right in the garret over the altar. Under 
my feet was the great span of the main vault, and 
over my head the original joinery of the great 
peaked roof. In the darkness of the garret we 
passed great old windlasses for lowering the 
huge candelabra which hung in the nave. We 
traveraed the garret to where through a little 



DINSMORE ELY 49 

door a shaky scaffolding led over a deep pit to 
the tower of the prison. Here, again, was a 
huge chamber lighted by narrow slits in twenty- 
foot walls. We descended again and at every 
landing was a narrow cell which came to a point 
in a small slit which admitted light and indenta- 
tion in the stone on which to sit. It was un- 
canny. It was a relief to come again to the day, 
where the bright sunlight played upon gargoyles 
and grotesques hiding in the carved stone. 

Such a feast of the imagination! I could sit 
down now and write a novel laid in the confines 
of that pile. Then a fellow whom I met and 
I went down and explored the crypt. There 
were unlit shrines and unaired vaults which 
ended by a wall one could not see over, and the 
air was cool and damp and so bad a match would 
not burn. We went out to breathe fresh air, and 
dream in the sun. 

Your Son. 

Ecole d' Aviation, Tours, August 28, igij. 
Dear Mother: 

I am so sore I've got to give expression to 
my feelings. You see, the truth of the matter is 
that I've been in the hospital five days with 
bronchitis, and though I am practically better 



50 DINSMORE ELY 

now I have just heard that the doctor said I 
must stay eight more days. It will put me so 
much behind my class that I am furious. It all 
started with a stomach ache and high fever the 
day I arrived in Tours. They put me in the in- 
firmary two days and then sent me to the hos- 
pital. I was pretty sick the first two days, but 
it's all gone practically. My temperature is 
thirty-seven degrees centigrade. But it is all 
bull. I shall be 2,000 meters in the air when 
you receive this. So it will be the height of folly 
to think of worrying. 

Tours is a pretty town on the river Loire, 
and I am waiting to go for a swim the first time 
my nurse takes me for a walk. They have not 
brought in my suitcase yet, so I must still use this 
paper. I have a number of sketches to finish up 
when the suitcase comes. Also it contains my 
books. This is a good place to study French. 
One of the men here was in Salonica two years 
and now has been in the hospital eleven months 
with colonial fever. Another cannot talk above 
a whisper. They are all generous and all think 
every American is deathly rich. One of the fel- 
lows set up a box of petite gateaux (French 
pastry) , and I passed it around. As these cakes 
are a rare delicacy and considered quite dear, 



DINSMORE ELY 51 

each man had to be pressed to take one. There 
is an EngHsh-speaking nurse here with a face 
like a blighted turnip. There is a gentle old 
Catholic Sister with great white wings on her 
hat, who is wonderful. She speaks only French, 
but she smiles in every language. I am getting 
a profound respect for the Catholic church. 

Well, my suitcase came today and I am all 
cleaned up. I've finished two letters that were 
started, so guess I'll close this one with love. 

Your Son. 

Dear Family : 

It has been quite a while since I have written 
you, and this letter must be a short one, but lots 
of things have been happening. As a matter 
of fact, there is a good long letter half written 
in my note book, but it is not here yet. 

Well, in the first place, I spent three days in 
Bourges. It is an aged town, was once the stop- 
ping place of Caesar, has been twice capital of 
France, and is rich in architectural treasures of 
all ages. The best thing there is the cathedral 
of St. Etienne, which I think you will find pic- 
tured and described in the encyclopedia. I 
spent my whole time sketching and sight-seeing, 
and will be perfectly contented to live within 



52 DINSMORE ELY 

two hundred yards of it for a month. Travel- 
ing alone is the best way to see things. There 
are more doors that a single person can pass 
through. I traversed much worn, winding stair- 
ways, and chilling passages, darksome. I saw 
cells and pits of torture of the Inquisition. The 
youngest part of the cathedral is four times as 
old as the United States. For the architect, it is 
a jewel; for the historian a treasure; for the 
poet, a dream; for the conqueror, a tomb; for 
the soul-torn, a haven; and a place of worship 
for everyone. A French nurse whom I met this 
morning said, "Why do they destroy the 
churches? The churches belong to everyone. 
They are theirs as well as ours." 

It was fortunate I took the opportunity of 
seeing Bourges, for the day after I returned to 
Avord we were all sent here to Tours to another 
school of aviation, devoted entirely to Ameri- 
cans. There is another wonderful cathedral 
here. We are learning a little more about our 
prospects. There are both U. S. Army and 
Navy men at this camp. The conditions of this 
camp are infinitely better than at Avord. Sheets 
on the bed, much better food, tablecloths, china, 
a piano, and better system. 

DiNSMORE, 



DINSMORE ELY 53 

September 4, 19 1?- 
Dear Mother: 

It is rather tiresome sitting in the hospital 
when I am not sick in the least, but to suggest 
leaving is to insult the man with authority to 
release me. When he finally decides to let me 
go, it will take three days for the red tape to 
be carried through, which permits me to return 
to the Ecole d' Aviation. Meanwhile, I am 
losing several hours of flying. The good Sep- 
tember season is just opening, and the days are 
delightful. We are given permission to leave 
the hospital and spend a day wandering around 
the historical city of Tours. I have been making 
pencil sketches and water colors, and it would 
really be very enjoyable if I were not so restless 
to get to work. You see, the time is a rather 
critical one. Anything is Hable to happen; the 
United States Government may take us over. 
They want monitors in the States to teach fly- 
ing, and if we are taken over we will probably 
be sent back without any fighting experience to 
act as monitors in the training school over there. 

This is all very indefinite, but I do not like 
to get behind the bunch or be away from the 
camp at a time when these changes may be 
made; still there is no use fretting and I sup- 



54 DINSMORE ELY 

pose things will work out all right. Anyway, 
I am not sick, and they must let me out pretty 
soon. I am on good terms with the chief doc- 
tor, who is a painter, and took an interest in my 
sketches and paintings. He offered to take me 
out to his house and show me his collection. 
I do not know when he will do so. I am trying 
to develop my general culture while there is 
opportunity, and have read six of Balzac's 
novels, historical and otherwise. There is a 
wonderful chance to study architecture, and I 
am keeping up my sketching in water color, 
as well as studying a little French. Un- 
fortunately, I left my history book in Paris, 
but will get what I can from Baedeker, 
and all the time I am storing up energy to use 
when the time comes. As to this prospect of 
the members of the Foreign Legion returning to 
America as monitors, most of the men do not 
like the idea of returning without some fighting 
experience. I am of that turn of mind. Men 
going back would be so much more able moni- 
tors if they had served on the Front, and they 
would be much more contented to return. There 
would be no doubt in my mind that I would re- 
main in the French Foreign Legion if it were 
not for the fact that at present they are making 



DINSMORE ELY 55 

monitors first lieutenants, with high pay, and a 
respectable office. Reason dictates that this will 
be changed very soon. I believe the men who 
are already officers will not be put back, how- 
ever. If this should be the case, the time to 
enter United States service is now. Money is 
not everything, but three thousand a year is not 
to be ignored. This is all conjecture, and I 
have not made up my mind as to what to do, and 
shall not until fuller and more reliable informa- 
tion is given out. 

The life here in the hospital is very pleasant. 
We wake at seven and have a little French 
breakfast of bread and coffee in bed; then we 
lie awake and read or doze for an hour or so. 
Rising at eight-thirty, we clean up and make 
our bed and read or write letters till lunch, which 
is a heavy meal served at eleven. By permis- 
sion from the doctor, we are then at liberty to 
go out and spend our time as we please until 
five, when we eat again. Of late I have been 
going over and watching the full moon rise on 
the river Loire after supper; I retire at eight 
or nine. 

The French have a strange custom of closing 
all their windows at night, but Americans are 
permitted to have one window open in their end 



56 DINSMORE ELY 

of the room. French medical authorities are 
convinced that two open windows in the same 
room are very unhealthy and dangerous. 

We have a good time wandering about the 
quaint, narrow streets, where strange people 
peer out of small, low windows, and under- 
sized doors. The houses are so old that dif- 
ferent materials and workmanship of a dozen 
repairs give their fagades a mottled appearance 
of many centuries, which suggest a strange col- 
lection of antiques within. This is carried out 
by glimpses through windows whose shutters 
are hanging aslant or thrown open. Within are 
seen old four-poster beds with canopies and 
feather mattresses which are round and swelled 
up as if inflated. Wrinkled old women with 
queer caps squint as they peer out, while their 
hands rest in embroidery. Elsewhere, little low 
passageways open into crammed little courts, 
with uneven tile floors, scrub trees, and a half- 
open circular stone staircase. Natural flowers 
and grass grow from the moss-covered tile 
roofs. 

Washing hangs from front windows, and 
people come out to empty their wash water 
and their refuse in the street gutter. Cats 
abound. I hope the sights and experiences of 



DINSMORE ELY 57 

war will not wipe out all these quaint and pleas- 
ant sights which make Europe what it is. 

Your Son. 

Dear Family : 

Things are speeding up. I'm out of the hos- 
pital. Came to the school Friday. Found I had 
about the best bed in our barracks and was in 
the smallest class with one of the best monitors 
— more luck. I am an hour and a half of flying 
behind the other fellows, but that is not bad. 

Well, the hospital did not cure my bronchitis. 
That, however, is nothing but a chronic cough 
which will mend here better than there. What 
it did cure, however, was my distaste for my 
fellow-countrymen; the cure was absolute, and 
of greater value than my physical cure could 
have been. My, but it was good to get back 
with the bunch again. All my old interest in 
people has revived, and I am more than content. 

And I have flown ! Wonderful. Oh, it was 
great. Saturday evening I went up for fifteen 
minutes as a passenger. Then Sunday m.orning 
we went up on my first ten minute lesson. When 
we were a hundred meters off the ground and 
had gone a quarter of a mile, the pilot gave the 
controls over to me and rested his hands over 



58 DINSMORE ELY 

the side while I drove entirely alone. It is more 
simple than driving an automobile because there 
is no road to watch. A glance at this side, a 
glance at that, to see that the wings are level. 
The throttle is set full at the outset and for- 
gotten till you descend. There Is a speedometer 
to watch and that is all. 

Of course this is just driving In a straight line 
through good air. Ascent Is dangerous; land- 
ing, an art In Itself. Every curve has its corres- 
ponding angle of bank, and the angle varies ac- 
cording to the direction of the wind relative to 
line of flight. Perfect carburetion is essential at 
all altitudes, but that all comes later. An under- 
standing of air currents and their effects must 
become instinctive; so, after all, the statement 
that It Is easy applies only where someone else 
Is there to do the worrying and look after the 
Important details, any one of which stands be- 
tween the here and the hereafter. The pilot 
said I did well on my first two sorties. 

Monday I went In to paint with the doctor, 
but he was going to an Allied musical fete given 
by the hospital for the reeducation of wounded 
soldiers, and so I accompanied him. Like all 
charity affairs, some of It was very boresome, 
but there was some very good music and one 



DINSMORE ELY 59 

singer from the Opera Comique of Paris. I 
shall go another day to paint with the doctor. 

This letter has been written out on the field, 
and as it has been continued through three 
classes I had better mail it. Have not heard 
from home for ten days or more. Had a couple 
of letters from my marraine. 

Son. 

September ii, igiy. 
Dear Family : 

From the sky the world is just as beautiful 
as from the ground, but all in a different way. 
Fields and farms become checks and plaids in 
varied greens and browns. Stream necklaces 
and jeweled lakes bedeck the landscape around. 
Horizon lines jump back ten leagues, and clouds 
swim by in droves. The setting sun may rise 
again for him who mounts to fly. Man, groping 
about in great fields assumes his actual size and 
importance in the universe; instead of being the 
egotistical, dominating element in an unim- 
portant foreground he shrinks to an atom, and 
the eternal infinite engulfs him. I can imagine 
a future life as a soul speeding through space, 
existing upon a sensation, a boundless view, and 
a breath of air. 



60 DINSMORE ELY 

The flying is progressing well. The monitor 
said tonight that he seldom had seen a pupil 
so apt, that I was doing well and would take 
up landings tomorrow. Twice today he let me 
take the aeroplane off the ground. I've had an 
hour and fifteen minutes of flying now and will 
soon catch up with the class, as far as ability 
is concerned. Our monitor is a wonderful 
teacher and a splendid flyer. 

I'm just as busy as I care to be. Up at five 
o'clock; work, six to ten; lecture, ten to eleven; 
repose to three; lecture, three to four; work 
four to nine. I haven't had time to mail this 
letter, but I'll do it tomorrow. 

Well, I'm simply wild about this life. The 
country is beautiful; chateaux abound; pretty 
farms — but I must go to bed. 
Good night, 

DiNSMORE. 

One thing I forgot to mention — the ma- 
chines we are running now take all the strength 
a man has to operate one of them in rough 
weather. After a ten minute ride, my right arm 
and shoulder aches. The story of an aviator 
landing and fainting from physical exhaustion 
does not seem as far-fetched as it did. 



DINSMORE ELY 61 

Dear Family : 

My first solo ride was this morning. It con- 
sisted of going in a straight line for half a mile 
at a height of two hundred feet. Everything 
went finely — no fear, excitement, nor difficulty. 
Oh, how I am going to love it ! I am inclined 
to believe that the nervous strain of driving will 
be less than that of driving an automobile after 
I have mastered the technique. Imagine being 
lost in the clouds, having to fight for one's life 
in a storm ! Great stuff ! One man had his 
engine stop at low altitude, went into a wing 
slip, and smashed his machine to atoms. He 
bruised his knee, but goes up tomorrow. Some of 
the final tests consist of pet'tts voyages about the 
country — a couple of hundred miles. This is the 
chateau country, and several of the men have been 
having experiences. One man's motor went bad 
and made him descend near a little town. He 
was arrested as a German spy, but on proving 
his identity was released by the mayor of the 
town. When he returned to his machine he 
found a Renault limousine waiting for him. The 
liveried chauffeur asked if he would favor the 
madame by taking dinner with them. He 
granted the favor, and rode back through the 
streets down which he had been led thirty 



62 DINSMORE ELY 

minutes before by a gendarme. He came to a 
great chateau, was introduced to some twenty 
girls (guests) among which were six girls of his 
age, both French and English. He was given a 
room and bath and fitted out with clothes which 
belonged to the son of the house, in aviation 
service at the Front. It was three days before 
he could get his machine fixed. During that 
time he was the chief guest, escorting the hostess 
into the dining room, canoeing, pheasant hunt- 
ing, motoring, and playing tennis with charming 
girls. He had a small car at his disposal, and 
a valet to attend him. They called him 
"Sammy" and urged him to return. It was 
the home of the Councillor of Gasoline of 
France. What luck! Half the men that go 
out have some such story when they return, but 
this man received the " aluminum lawnmower." 
It is everybody's hope to have some such trouble. 
We are so busy now that I cannot write as 
much as I should like to. I am trying to keep 
up some other correspondence. 

Your ever loving. 

Dins. 



DINSMORE ELY 63 

September /^^ IQI?- 
Dear Family : 

Major Gros of the United States Flying 
Division arrived here at ten o'clock last night 
and gave us a talk. We are given, the choice 
of going into the U. S. Army as first lieutenants 
at $2,600 to $2,700 a year, or remaining in the 
French service. I shall change immediately. 
It is the advice of all officials, both French and 
United States. We are to be examined today, 
and certain papers are to be signed applying for 
service in aviation. In a few weeks we sign 
into the service if we are accepted; meanwhile 
we continue our training without interruption, 
being corporals in the U. S. Army until we 
obtain our brevet (pilot's license). Thereafter 
we automatically become first lieutenants and 
continue our training in French schools, in 
French machines, with French instructors. We 
are better off all around, and all well satisfied. 
Dr. Gros, an American doctor, is the man who 
gave me fatherly advice. We received two 
hundred francs from him for this month's 
pay from the Franco-American Flying Corps. 
Things are still turning out just as I had hoped 
— no worry, all happy, wonderful experience. 

Thank you for sending the things. They will. 



64 DINSMORE ELY 

no doubt, reach me in due time. There is noth- 
ing else I need, thank you, and most of the men 
are not in need. Everything will be supplied us 
by the U. S. Army. Already its organization 
over here is far superior to that of the French. 
United States newspapers have much better war 
news than French papers. Incidentally, even 
France is not free from the graft hookworm, 
and rumors that float around here are just as 
wild and untrue as anywhere. My marraine 
sent me a box of nice candy the other day. It 
arrived just at a time when I was blue and a little 
envious of others receiving letters. When the 
candy came they were all keen to have a mar- 
raine, and refused to believe she was a married 
woman, and all that. It filled the bill, and the 
stomach. 

The other day I did about a month's washing 
and saved about two dollars. Tomorrow I shall 
darn and sew on buttons. There are a few good 
popular novels around here and I am enjoying 
them. There is not time enough for me to go 
around and see the chateaux here. Extra time 
goes for sleep. My, but I am interested in art 
and architecture. As we go to our field, we pass 
along a great, tree-arched national road, past 
the entrance of an old twelfth-century chateau. 



DINSMORE ELY 65 

Our field is some five miles from camp, and is 
entered by a country road which passes through 
an ancient vineyard, with big stone granaries, 
and a pond. We picked berries and'pears about 
the borders of the field. Little children come 
out with baskets of peaches, plums, and pears 
for sale very cheap, and in the morning a 
woman who speaks English comes out with cof- 
fee, and marmalade sandwiches. That's our 
breakfast, and then we fly and look at the sun- 
rise. 

It's time to go to bed. I'll write more tomor- 
row. 

September i^, IQI?- 
We are now taking our physical examina- 
tions. Mine has been perfectly normal; they 
found nothing wrong with my heart, and a spe- 
cial examination of my lungs (by request) 
showed nothing abnormal, though I have still a 
little bronchial cough. It looks as though we 
were to have a few days of rain. I can stand 
it for sleep. Just received my two hundred 
francs, and I feel rich. I am going to deposit 
it, as I have a hundred francs left from last 
month. I am pleased with the financial outlook. 
At the end of the war I'll have enough money to 



66 DINSMORE ELY 

travel, or get married, or finish " Tech." If the 
war lasts long enough I may have enough for 
all three. If anything happens to me my life 
insurance pays for Robert's education, but there 
is no particular reason why anything should 
happen to me. I am not counting on it. 

Say, I have so many clothes that they are 
becoming positively a burden. When we enter 
the U. S. Army in two or three weeks we will 
be provided with a complete outfit of U. S. 
Regulars uniform. When we have our brevet 
we get a complete leather uniform. My khaki 
uniform has not been washed since the beginning 
and is all covered with grease spots and " tacky " 
looking, but it is comfortable, and I saved two 
hundred francs by waiting. The sweater you 
knitted for me is doing good service — so light 
and neat inside a coat. It is very handy. That 
picture of Robert's is mighty good. Tell him to 
write to me. I just received my pictures. Print- 
ing is very expensive here, and the work is not 
very satisfactory. I hesitate to let them develop 
my pictures. Our time is filled now all right. 
I must sleep some more. That is one of the great 
requisites in aviation. 

You might send me things to eat now and 
then. Dates, figs, candied fruits, fruit cake, 



DINSMORE ELY 67 



candied pineapple, fig newtons, and salted nuts. 
They come through pretty well in about a month 
or so, and keep well. It is best to sew cloth 
around the package before putting on the out- 
side cover. It's pretty nice to receive packages. 

Your son, 

DiNSMORE. 

Personnel Dep., Aviation Section, A. E. F., 
4S Ave. Montaigne, Paris, September ig. 
Dear Family : 

The above heading is the official address of 
the U. S. Aviation Section, and the one which 
you must use from now on. Yesterday I got a 
flock of letters — three of mother's, one of 
father's, one of Robert's, two or three others, 
and a bunch of the ''Tech" magazines. The 
''Tech'' has more news of vital interest than 
any paper I see over here. 

Tension is rather high in camp. Major Carr, 
when he was here, told the French lieutenant 
that there were 500,000 men in the States 
anxious to fill our places. Since then five men 
had been radiated (a polite French word for 
''fired"), for breaking machines. Everybody 
is frightened. The men had been sent up from 
our class, two and three a day. One man is in 



68 DINSMORE ELY 

the hospital, one in Paris, and today the last two 
go up, so at present I am the only one in the 
class. The hospital put me behind all right. 
Though I should like to catch up with the other 
men and would be willing to take a chance, yet 
it is not the best way to learn. They say a 
"slow beginning is time well spent," and I am 
with an excellent instructor. I could not learn 
faster than I can with him, so it is for me to be 
content. The men that were radiated were men 
who had been sent up too quickly. 

There is a bad fog this morning, so I guess 
we will not get any work. Many things inter- 
fere with aviation training. Sun makes heat 
waves, fog bars the view, wind makes it danger- 
ous, yet we get a good deal of flying at that. 
When we are lacked (released) we have a ma- 
chine of our own and go out and fly whenever 
we feel like it. That will be fine. 

I went to Tours day before yesterday and 
had a swim. The Loire River is very swift, 
and it was all I could do to swim up it thirty 
feet. They have the natatorium floating in the 
river, and have it fixed with a strainer to hold 
the people in. I would like to swim down the 
river about ten miles, floating with the current, 
but it is against the law to swim in the open. 



DINSMORE ELY 69 



Day before yesterday was the first time I've 
been swimming this year. 

We have a great time in our barracks. EVery 
night there are a number of rough houses. Last 
night we had a real fight. One vulgar, loud- 
mouthed fellow called a smaller man the for- 
bidden name, and the little fellow lit into him. 
Everybody wanted to see the vulgar one cleaned 
up — and they did. After a couple of blows the 
big one clinched in the strangle hold, but the 
little one was a college wrestler with a neck like 
a bull. He squirmed around in a circle and 
nearly broke the big man's arm ; then he punched 
the big one's face. They knocked over some 
beds and rolled on the floor; then they got up 
and talked till they got their breath. The big 
one was dissipated, and shaky on his feet. The 
light man lit into him again. Neither of them 
were fighters, but they meant well. The heavy 
one lunged with a hammer swing, missed, and 
the light man came in short and quick on his 
jaw. The heavy man reeled back to the wall, 
but came again and clinched before both eyes 
were shut. The little man went under, but it 
was only from weight, and he was on top in a 
minute. He rubbed the big one's face in the 
floor, and then let him up. Then the yellow 



70 DINSMORE ELY 



streak showed up. The big one sat down on 
the edge of the bed, whimpering and holding his 
arm, which had been fractured. He said he 
wasn't licked, but had enough for the night. 
The crowd mumbled disapproval and went off 
to bed. A few gullible ones stayed to fix up the 
big man's arm. He cried like a baby. He hasn't 
shown his face for two days. 

One of the fellows just tells me I have been 
shifted to another monitor who is very violent, 
so I do not know what the outcome will be. The 
fog grows thicker; we shall not work today. 
The greatest lesson of war is patience. There 
are many days in which we do not work. I am 
trying to use that time to rest and build up for 
what may come. The way things are run here 
prevents one from having a system by which 
he may utilize his time, so I work by inspiration. 
The time will come — and a long time it will 
be — when I must work by routine, so I guess 
It will not hurt to work by inspiration for a little 
while. My stay at the hospital must have done 
me good. I am In splendid condition, and very 
healthy and happy. 

Your Son. 



DINSMORE ELY 71 

September 28, igiy. 
Dear Family : 

Everything is going fine, but slow. I was 
passed to the next solo class today and will be 
on my brevet work within a week, so I should 
be delighted — but I am as blue as the devil. 
What I want is to see and talk with a good, 
beautiful, splendid, charming American girl. 

I am sleeping and eating like a beast. Made 
a little water color today; had a feW letters 
from my marraine, but no one here has heard 
from home for weeks. I am going into town 
today, just for a change. It would be easy to 
get into a rut here. I love these little French 
pastries, and fill myself full of them every time 
I go to Tours. There is one place where you 
can get ice cream. Just imagine, and Tours once 
the capital of France ! There is a great big old 
twelfth-century castle built by the Norman lords 
not far from here. I am going up and see it 
tomorrow. I must find some way to get around 
to these chateaux near here. Perhaps I shall 
take a week's permission after my brevet. If 
I do not break a machine I'll go back to Avord 
for Nieuport work, but I'm pretty good on land- 
ing, so if luck is with me there will be no diffi- 
culty. Robert's letter just arrived, telling me 



72 DINSMORE ELY 

of long pants and hoping his brother Is out of 
the crowd of unclean men. 

Your Son. 

September 2g, igij. 
Dear Family: 

Today I was called to the top sergeant of the 
U. S. Army here and presented with a telegram 
thrice forwarded from Washington asking after 
the health of one DInsmore Ely. I reported 
that I was In the hospital two weeks with a slight 
attack of bronchitis, which did not confine me to 
my bed. After being reprimanded for the folly 
of mentioning such a sickness, I was dismissed. 
Where men are being killed at the rate of fifty 
thousand a month, note that it was a most ab- 
surd thing to clog official wires over the ailment 
of a private. Incidentally, it marked him as a 
pampered pet. Lately, Reno, the aviator, was 
reported dead and mourned in world-wide publi- 
cation. He later entered a Paris bank to draw 
his account and return on permission to 
America. He will arrive before this letter. This 
goes to prove that absolutely no report can be 
believed. There are undoubtedly a great many 
aviators listed as dead who are prisoners in 
Germany. The only news you can rely upon 



DINSMORE ELY 73 

will be from my hand. I am in perfect health 
now, and will continue to be as long as I live. 
You will hear nothing more in regard to my 
health until my obituary notice reaches you, and 
as that will not be from me, you will be foolish 
to put any trust in it. My letters will be most 
irregular and undependable, by accident or in- 
tention, so you need not try to guess my health 
from them. Also keep in mind that one blue 
evening may give rise to more dissatisfaction 
than a deadly disease. It has been a custom of 
the Elys to keep the wires hot when one of them 
had a cold. That must stop in war time. If 
you people are determined to let your imagina- 
tion turn your hair gray, nothing on God's earth 
can stop you. In spite of the fact that I am an 
Ely, I am only one of the eight million men 
whose lives are worth the ground covered by 
their feet. If you do not believe unmentioned 
health is the best way to prevent worry, wait a 
year and see. You need not try to persuade 
me to keep you informed on my health. Mean- 
while the war will continue as usual, I doing 
my part. Do not take this letter as curt;, it is 
just entirely lacking in romance. I am in per- 
fectly good humor; also I am thinking just a 
little clearer than my parents did when they 



74 DINSMORE ELY 

telegraphed around the world in war times to 
find out if I had recovered from a minor attack 
of bronchitis. You must have the same faith 
in me to look after my physical health as after 
my moral. 

The Tribune is coming and it seems good, but 
you would be surprised how little current events 
are touched upon here. What we crave most 
in reading is romance. The Saturday Evening 
Post fills the bill more than anything else. If 
you could send me a subscription of that for six 
months, it would be greatly appreciated. There 
are plenty here, but by that time will be sent to 
different posts. 

I wrote to Robert today, and will probably 
write to him quite often. Wish he would find 
time to write to me frequently, at least once a 
week. 

Your Son. 

Ecole d' Aviation, Tours, September ^o, IQIJ- 
Dear Mother: 

Something pleasantly interesting happened 
today. Early this morning Loomis in the bed 
next to mine asked me if I would join him in 
a party with some friends of his. They were 
to come out to the school for us, so I borrowed 



DINSMORE ELY 75 

a blue French uniform and stuff and dolled out 
as fine as you please. The friends came at ten- 
thirty in a touring car. The party consisted of 
M. and Mme. Romaine, who were our host and 
hostess, and Mile. Gene Recault, and her future 
father-in-law. She was very pretty, charming, 
and entirely French. Her father-in-law, M. 
Vibert, was as jolly as a youth of twenty-five. 
They were all so cordial and generous, and en- 
tirely agreeable. We went to Tours and called 
at a music store, where Mile. Gene purchased 
some music. Then we went to the hotel at 
which we had spent the night, and she gave us 
the treat of a wonderful voice. It was too 
strong for the small salon, but when she 
lowered, it was delightful. She was the leading 
pupil in the National School of Music at Paris, 
and withal, modest and charming. We pro- 
ceeded to a cafe in the Rue National where we 
had a good breakfast at twelve-thirty. The 
meal was lively, and we were able to take an 
interesting part in the conversation, thanks to 
the sympathetic courtesy of our companions. 
M. Vibert was full of pranks and humor, so at 
the end of the meal I started to use a nut- 
cracker on a peach, and Mile. Gene took it 
from me in consternation and showed me how 



76 DINSMORE ELY 

the French peeled a peach and cracked nuts; 
so I cracked the peach nut and ate the kernel 
and showed them the American method of 
cracking nuts under the heel. They were ex- 
tremely considerate of my ignorance. After 
dinner we got, into the machine and rode to a 
wine shop where we had some tea. It always 
takes half the meal for me to make new ac- 
quaintances understand that I do not drink wine 
or coffee. The family asked me to come out 
and stay with them during our permission. We 
returned to the school about three-thirty. It 
was a mighty pleasant Sunday. 

All the mail is being held somewhere — and 
we want letters. I get about two letters a week 
from marraine, which fills the gap between those 
from home. 

With love, 

Your Son. 

October 2, IQI?- 
Dear Family : 

Yesterday's mail brought a good long letter 
from father and about fifteen Chicago papers. 
It simply was good to hear the doings in Chi- 
cago and suburbs. I imagine there will be a 
stack of letters come in some of these days. A 



DINSMORE ELY 77 

letter came from my marraine saying I must 
surely stay with her while in Paris. 

We have just been out in the field, but wind 
brought rain up from the south and we returned. 
When we got back, the mail was in. Oh, golly I 
Thirteen letters for me. It has been a pretty 
long wait, but they came in a bunch. Letters 
ranging from September 2 to 12 arrived. My, 
but it's a pleasure to hear from father. Of 
course your letters are just as good, but they 
come natural, as you have been always the offi- 
cial correspondent, but father's letters combine 
surprise with novelty, and the newspaper clip- 
pings are so interesting. They appeal more than 
the newspapers themselves, because they allow 
me to follow the interests of my friends through 
my family. How they do marry off ! It will 
be a different country, a different town, even a 
changed family when I return. I am not quite 
sure which is changing the faster — father or 
Robert. Mother seems to remain the same. 
Being constantly in my own company keeps me 
from seeing a change in myself. It is natural 
that Robert should develop rapidly, but father 
has changed so greatly that I can hardly keep 
pace with him. He seems to be entering a new 
youth from the day he ran up the stairs at 1831 



78 DINSMORE ELY 



to put out the fire in your room started by my 
little alcohol engine — I recall him as a silent, 
serious, weary-with-work father, whose only 
real friends were in books and in his office. He 
was nervous and particular, and never would 
tell me when he was satisfied with what I tried 
to do — kind, patient, silent, oh, so careful. I 
could not move him, win him, nor understand 
him. This was, of course, after my curls were 
cut. After he had been my Santa Claus and 
birthday godfather and Easter fairy in granting 
my every wish, then came the high-school period 
when I would have given anything to have really 
heard his approval, when I no longer feared 
him nor yet appreciated him. At college I 
wished to be worthy of his name. There I 
learned something of men — and, oh, how proud 
of him I was Junior Week! But from my 
Christmas vacation there was a great change — 
the barrier was broken and I began to see in 
him a future friend and companion, the equal 
of whom I had not met among all my friends. 
Of course the change has been mostly in me, 
and my growing point of view; but, still, father 
has grown jollier and freer, more witty and 
talkative, and more intimate with people and 
nature and animals. I have wondered at the 



DINSMORE ELY 79 

causes: two, anyway, were prosperity and 
Robert — God bless him and our happy home. 
To the other, no legend, story, or orator ever 
succeeded in giving to it its due ; that single word 
more than godly, more than eternal, a title, a 
prayer, a caress, guardian angel of the mind — 
mother! 

Good night, dear family, 

DiNSMORE. 

Dear Family : 

A few days of poor weather is confining us. 
There is time to think, and time to do every- 
thing you think of — and then time to think. 

One of my lines of thought has been how I 
might make a little money on the side. Our 
spare hours come in such small classes that it 
does not permit me to go about seeing the 
chateaux of this country, or to go to Tours a 
great deal to sketch, except when it rains; then 
is not the time to go. Mother mentioned giving 
my letters to some paper, I believe. I know 
that a great many people over here are receiv- 
ing quite a nice little pay for just such letters. 
I wish I could v/ork it some way, but as I speak 
of it I feel a queer family pride which would 
spoil it, I suppose. For some reason or other, 



80 DINSMQRE ELY 

there are only certain ways of commercializing 
one's assets without loss of pride. Is this loss 
of cosmopolitanism, and an approach to caste? 
I guess not. I can sketch, but that is not great 
fun when you haven't interesting subjects and 
good weather. I can make some post cards and 
try coloring them, which would not be bad prac- 
tice withal. Well, I'll be going to Paris soon, 
and laying in a good supply of good books. 

Had a letter from Gop today. His letters are 
full of foolishness, and most refreshing. He 
has gotten off all his conditions this summer, and 
will probably get his degree in mid-year. The 
fraternity house opens on the seventeenth of 
September, and Gop thinks there is a promising 
year ahead. I see from the ^^ Tech ^' there is to 
be a great increase in the freshman class. My, 
but I hope they pull through with a strong line. 
I put a lot of interest into the development of 
that fraternity, and got a lot out of it. My feel- 
ing of ease in the barracks life is improving. I 
believe adaptation can be made without con- 
cession, and get fair results. 

Fifty more American, pilots from the ground 
schools in the States arrived yesterday. They 
have spent their first month in digging trenches 
and foundations. They arrived in France 



DINSMORE ELY 81 

August 22 via England, and are glad to get 
here. One of them tells the story of their pas- 
sage. One of the boats was torpedoed in sight 
of the Welsh coast. There were seven trans- 
ports and a convoy of eleven torpedo boat de- 
stroyers. They were in the dining room when 
they felt a heavy jar. All rose to their feet 
and turned white, a few screamed, and others 
cried, " Steady." They got to the deck in time 
to see a destroyer rush to a spot a half mile 
away, drop a sinking mine, and start up again. 
Before the destroyer had gone a hundred feet 
the ocean over the bomb raised up in a mighty 
spout, which lifted the rear of the destroyer 
thirty feet on the swell. It was one of the new 
mines which destroy a submarine within a radius 
of six hundred feet ; meanwhile they had manned 
the life boats. Inspection proved that the tor- 
pedo had struck a glancing blow and had not 
exploded. It made a rent in the hull of the ship 
four feet long in a hold containing baled cotton. 
The ship contained three hundred nurses be- 
sides the troops. It is claimed that the sub- 
marine was sunk. It seems the mine does not 
harm the destroyer any more than a rough sea. 
Well, so much for today. 

Your Son. 



82 DINSMORE ELY 



Ecole d' Aviation Tours, France, 

October ^, iQiy^ 
Dear Bob : 

Your letter arrived about three days ago. I 
am mighty glad to hear that you are going to 
Lake Forest to school. 

You will make good ; you have to make good 
because your name is Ely — and we are here to 
prove that the Elys make good. You will be 
away from home a good deal and I think that 
will do you a great deal of good. But when 
you do go home, make the most of it; it is your 
duty to be with mother and father as much as 
you can; they need you and it is the one way 
you can repay them directly. There is another 
thing, confide in mother and father; just be- 
cause they are older, don't you think for a 
moment that they do not understand children. 
They will not blame you if you tell them things 
which you think may be wrong, and your con- 
science will blame you if you do not tell them. 
And they will show you the best way out of 
trouble; father can give more of a sermon in 
three minutes than any minister I ever heard 
could preach in an hour — and it will not make 
you feel foolish either. That's at home. 

At school you will have no trouble making 



DINSMORE ELY 83 



friends. It is worth your while to make ac- 
quaintances with everyone, there is good in all 
of them. But the best of them are none too 
good to be your friends. Most of the boys 
swear and smoke and tell vulgar stories and 
a few may try liquor; they do it because men 
do it and they want to be men. Men do it 
usually because they started when they were 

boys. 

Vulgar stories will keep you from becom- 
ing a strong man; once in a while you can- 
not help listening to them; never remember one, 
never tell one under any condition, and people 
will learn to know you as a boy with a clean 
mind. Liquor will keep you from having a 
happy home ; never touch it. Smoking will keep 
you from being as strong and healthy as God 
meant you to be. Everybody who smokes will 
say it doesn't hurt them, but when they want 
to make a team they quit smoking. Nobody 
can keep you from smoking but nobody can 
stop you either. Many good business men will 
not hire boys who smoke. Swear if you must, 
smoke if you want to after you are a man, but 
for goodness sake, do not do it in order to be 
a man or because other boys do it. If you can- 
not be a man without it, you can't be a man 



84 DINSMORE ELY 

with it. And an Ely doesn't do things because 
other people do them. And you're an Ely. 

Amen. 

You should be over here and see France. 
It's the greatest farming and fruit country I 
ever saw — Wisconsin included. I went for a 
long walk today and I was eating all the time. 
I'd come to a vineyard with white grapes — 
just finished them and along came purple 
grapes. I'd just finished the purple grapes 
when I came to a place where walnut trees were 
on each side of the road and the walnuts were 
being blown down faster than one could pick 
'em up — just as the walnuts were gone, I came 
to the apples and then the raspberries and black- 
berries and peaches and chestnuts. I was full 
by that time. At one place there was a village 
dug out of the chalk side of the cliff; strange 
doors and passages and dark rooms as old as 
America and wells a hundred feet deep; wine 
presses and wine cellars and stables — all cut 
from the rocks. 

We still have our good scraps. Yesterday 
there was one with eleven men in it. We 
knocked over seven beds and one man, whose 
head was cut, got blood on five of them. It's 
our only real exercise and we enjoy it. 



DINSMORE ELY 85 



The other night three Frenchmen stood out 
in front of the barracks keeping us awake. 
George Mosely ran out in his nightshirt and 
tumbled one over, and the other two ran away. 
Ten minutes later, four men who had been 
drinking came along and put a man in the rain 
barrel full of water. 

Some of us have been put up in the next class. 
Soon we have spirals and voyages. Two weeks 
from now I'll get my license as an air pilot if 
I have luck. Then come acrobatics. 

Write me a letter telling about your school 
life. Write often. Nothing is better practice 
in English, composition, spelling, and penman- 
ship, than letter writing; and your being away 
from home will make you understand how much 
your lovin' brother wants your letters. 

Always an Ely, 

Dins. 

October g, igij. 
Dear Family : 

I decided on the spur of the moment to go to 
Paris. The equinox has come, and we bid fair 
to have a week of bad weather. So I borrowed 
a French uniform from " Stuff " Spencer and am 
now waiting for the train. I have the privilege 



86 DINSMORE ELY 

of being in the city forty-eight hours. While 
there I shall go to the Hotel Cecilia to get many 
things from my trunk — things that I need here. 
I shall probably eat and sleep at my marraine's 
home. I just needed a change, and as this is not 
likely to interfere with flying, I feel all right 
about it ; neither will it detract from my week's 
permission after my brevet. Yesterday I was 
reprimanded for having United States buttons 
on my clothes and told to take them off. It is 
getting cold enough now to use my heavy suit 
that I got at Field's, so I shall have some gold 
buttons put on it, and blossom out. No use 
talking, leather goods are pretty high priced. 
The stock shoe furnished by the U. S. Army 
costs $9.50, the high field boots, such as avia- 
tors are wearing, cost $35.00 to $40.00; of- 
ficers' belts cost $8.00 to $10.00. You see, we 
will have to come across. Have not heard con- 
cerning my shoes yet, but hope they may have 
arrived at the club. The " Tech " Club, by the 
way, has been closed in favor of a University 
Club, which evolves from it. 

Well, I must be off, will probably not write 
again till my return. 

Yours truly, 

DiNSMORE. 



DINSMORE ELY 87 

October i^, 19^7- 
Dear Bob : 

Sometimes we go two or three weeks without 
enough happening to write about — but yester- 
day something occurred. They told me to take 
my altitude test, and put me into the machine. 
In the altitude test the object is to climb to a 
height of twenty-six hundred meters (eighty-five 
hundred feet) and stay there for an hour. Well, 
I started with a good motor and a joyous heart, 
for the weather had been bad for six days and 
I felt like a horse that needs a run. The plane 
climbed wonderfully. There were quite a few 
clouds in the sky, but I saw blue spots to go up 
through as I circled high over the school. In 
the first fifteen minutes I had climbed fifteen 
hundred meters, but once up there I found that 
the holes in the sky had disappeared and there 
was nothing for it but to go right up through the 
clouds. The low-hanging cloudlets began to 
whisk by and the mist gathered on my glasses. 
Never having played around in the clouds much, 
I didn't know what was coming. Well, the mist 
grew thicker and thicker, and looking down I 
found the ground fading away like pictures on 
a movie screen when the lights turn on. I began 
to wonder what I'd do without any ground under 



88 DINSMORE ELY 



me. I soon found out when the ground dis- 
appeared entirely. Have you been in a fog 
so thick that you couldn't see your hand before 
your face, and you sort of hestitate to step 
any farther for fear of falling off the edge of 
something or running into something? Then 
imagine going through such a fog at eighty miles 
per hour. « 

When I had been out of sight of ground 
for less than a minute something strange seemed 
to be happening. There was a feeling of un- 
steadiness, and I thought maybe I was tipping 
a little. I tried to level up the plane, and found 
I couldn't tell whether it was tipped to right 
or left. The controls went flabby, and then the 
bottom dropped out. You understand I couldn't 
see twenty feet — but I was falling — faster — 
faster. The wires and struts of the machine 
began to whistle and sing and the wind roared 
by my ears. I began to think very fast. No 
one has ever fallen far enough to know what 
that speed is, and lived to tell about it, unless 
he was in an aeroplane. There was no doubt 
about it, I was falling — falling like a lost star. 
I was frightened, in a way, but there was so 
much excitement — too much to think about to 
be panic-stricken. It was awful and thrilling. 



DINSMORE ELY 89 



You wonder what happened? Why, I tell it 
slowly. That is how I wondered what was 
going to happen. The seconds seemed like min- 
utes. I began to reason about it. Was it all 
over? Had I made my last mistake when I 
entered those clouds? Had all my training and 
education for twenty-three years been leading 
up to this fall ? It seemed unreasonable and un- 
just. Still, there I was, falling as in a dream. 
Well, I didn't need my engine, I was going fast 
enough without it, so I cut it off, but that's all 
the good it did. I couldn't see my propeller, and 
yet I plunged downward. That's right, I must 
be falling downward. Ah! a bright idea. 
Downward, therefore toward the earth. 

Then I recalled the fact that the lowest clouds 
were eighteen hundred meters above the earth, 
and I was still in them. I must come out of 
them before striking, so I waited. My head 
felt light; my eyes watered behind the glasses. 
I remember watching the loose lid on the map 
box waving and tilting back and forth; then 
suddenly I became aware of a shadow, a dark 
spot, a body, and there, 'way off at the end of 
my wing, was a map of the world coming at me. 
I headed for it and then slowly let the machine 
come to its flying position and it was over. I was 



90 DINSMORE ELY 

flying serenely above the earth, with a surpris- 
ing lack of concern. I had fallen a thousand 
feet. That was the first one — the thrilling, 
fearful one. 

But I hadn't made my altitude, so I tried 
again, and fell the same. Many times I tried. 
Once I saw the sun through the mist, and it was 
under my wing instead of over it. I was then 
falling upside down. I do not know the capers 
that that machine cut up there during the hour 
and a half of my repeated endeavor to go up 
through that strata of cloud, but no acrobatic 
was left unaccomplished, I am sure. Spirals, 
barrel turns, nose dives, reversements — all un- 
known to me. I pressed on one side, then on 
the other. I hung by the belt and pressed for- 
ward and backward. Again I would fall into 
the open. Again I climbed into the clouds, but 
it was all useless and vain. I could not keep my 
balance without the world or the sun to go by. 
Then my motor began to miss, so I decided to 
go down. Well, if a person has undergone all 
the dangers and surprises that the air has to 
offer without being able to see what he is doing, 
he feels perfectly at home doing anything when 
he has a clear outlook. I had proved that the 
machine couldn't hurt itself by falling a thou- 



^ DINSMORE ELY 91 

sand feet and as I was still some seven thousand 
feet high, I decided to experiment, so I did 
spirals right and left, wing slips, nose dives and 
tail slips, reversements and stalls, vertical banks 
and crossed controls — everything, in fact, that 
I had ever seen done with the machine. They 
were all simple, without terror, and quite safe. 
I failed in my altitude, but I learned enough 
about the handling of that machine to make 
up for a dozen failures. I'll try my altitude 
again on a clear day. I am glad I had the expe- 
rience, for it gave me great confidence. I did 
three hours of flying yesterday. 

The most dangerous thing that happened was 
one time when i fell in the clouds and the fall 
seemed longer than usual before the clear air 
was reached. Suddenly I realized that my glasses 
were covered with snow, so I took them off and 
found I had fallen two hundred meters below 
the clouds while blinded by my glasses. Just 
to show how nicely balanced a good machine is, 
I let go of the control about two minutes, while 
cleaning my glasses, and steered entirely with 
my feet. My, but flying is a wonderful game. 
If I come through, I'll give you one royal ride 
in heaven before I give up aviation. 

Dins. 



92 DINSMORE ELY 

Chateau du Bois, La Ferte-Imhault, France, 

October 75 to 2'J, 1917. 
Dear Mother: 

The god of good fortune is still guarding your 
son, and touching his life with experience and 
romance. I am a guest at an old French 
chateau — but I must start at the beginning. 
For the past few days I have been too busy to 
write. After the altitude test, which I com- 
pleted the following day, I took two petits voy- 
ages, which were pleasant and uneventful, save 
for the second when I arrived at the school after 
dark and made my landing by the light of a 
bonfire. It was a good landing, and gave me 
more confidence. The next man after me 
crashed to the ground so loudly that it was heard 
a quarter of a mile. The next morning I started 
upon my first triangle, which is a trip of over 
two hundred kilometers from Tours to Chateau- 
dun, thence to Pontlevoy, and back again to 
Tours. My motor gave trouble before starting, 
but ran well for a time. When I had gone over 
three-fourths of the way the motor began to 
miss, and I landed in a field. Four out of the 
ten spark plugs had gone bad. They had given 
me only two spark plugs and no wrench. I bor- 
rowed a wrench from a passing motor car, and 



DINSMORE ELY 93 

managed to clean the plugs and start up again, 
but as no one was there to hold the motor I 
could not let it warm up and it did not catch 
well, so I only rose twenty feet. A short turn 
and side landing was the only thing that kept 
me from landing in a stone quarry. I taxied 
back to the field and tried again. By that time 
the motor was warm and picked up pretty well. 
I ascended to seven hundred meters, and proceed- 
ed confidently on my way, and there is where I 
" done " made my mistake. For a little time 
I was lost. Then I found my landmarks and 
continued. The wind had become quite high, 
and it took some time for me to come back 
against it to my course. In fact, it took an hour. 
Then I continued forty-five degrees into the 
wind for half an hour. I should have arrived 
long ago and I was a little worried. The engine 
began to miss again. The country was spotted 
with woods and lakes and there were few good 
landing places. By now I knew I was totally 
lost and would have to descend, anyway, to find 
my way. I had no more come to this decision 
than the engine became hopeless, and I aimed 
for a field right near a little town under me; 
but the wind was so strong that I misjudged 
and overshot my landing and had to turn on my 



94 DINSMORE ELY 

motor again. It caught but poorly, and barely 
raised me above a hedge of trees and telegraph 
wires. I had hardly speed to stay up and found 
myself over a wood, skimming the tree tops by 
no more than a meter. The slow speed made 
the controls very difficult, and the currents from 
the woods tossed me about like a cork on a 
choppy sea. The wind was blowing thirty miles 
per hour. For half a mile I staggered over and 
between the tree tops till I came to a little tri- 
angle of field. I made a vertical bank twenty 
feet from the ground and landed into the wind. 
It was a good landing, but the trouble was when 
I touched the ground I was going at thirty miles 
per hour, and there was a row of trees twenty 
feet in front of me. I hit between two trees, and 
when I crawled out, the wings, running gear, and 
braces and wires were piled around on the 
ground and trees, and I wasn't even scratched. 
A crowd gathered to collect souvenirs, and I 
telegraphed and telephoned to the school to 
come and pick up the pieces. There was nothing 
to do but wait, so I went out to a bridge and 
talked French with a little boy. 

Soon a motor car drove up, and out stepped 
a young French chap. He asked if I was the 
guy and I says " Yes," and he " 'lowed " that he 



DINSMORE ELY 95 

was just back from Verdun for his permission 
and asked if I would come out and have supper 
and stay overnight, so we got in the car and 
went out to a beautiful chateau. I met the fam- 
ily and apologized for my clothes, which they 
said were fine for war times. Then the children 
came in and played until supper. 

They were all charming — no formality or 
constraint. They all spoke English, more or 
less, and the dinner was jolly, with difficulties of 
understanding. The eldest son of the family 
had lost his life when a bombing plane burned 
over Verdun last year. That gave them and me 
a special bond of sympathy. The other son, of 
about twenty-two, is a sergeant in the First 
Dragoons. The eldest daughter, of about 
twenty-eight, mother of all the little children, 
sat beside me. Her husband is a captain in the 
First Dragoons. She was very entertaining and 
spoke English quite well. The other member 
was the little daughter, about fifteen. Later I 
learned that M. Duval is a viscount, of the old 
blood of France. 

After dinner we went into the petit salon. 
They entertained me by showing me innumer- 
able photographs. M. Duval is a camera en- 
thusiast, and does all his own developing and 



96 DINSMORE ELY ' 

printing. He takes these double pictures on 
plates, and you look at them through a stereo- 
scope. They have traveled very extensively. 
They have hunted big game and small game in 
mountain, forest, and plain, and the pictures tell 
the story like an Elmendorf lecture. Mean- 
while, they all contributed interesting remarks 
in broken English, and so we got better ac- 
quainted. Mme. Duval showed me her post- 
card collection of French chateaux. The Duvals 
owned more than twenty through Touraine and 
Normandy, they and their direct relatives by 
marriage. We all went up the old stairway to- 
gether and bid each other good night in the 
upper hall. They asked what I wanted for 
my breakfast in bed, but I came down bright 
and early and joined them at a seven o'clock 
breakfast. We looked at some more pictures 
and then went rabbit hunting in the drizzling 
rain. They gave me an American repeating gun. 
M. Duval assigned us to our positions, not far 
from the chateau, and we waited. Three or 
four men set about to drive the rabbits. Off 
among the trees I saw the strangest looking rab- 
bit. I pulled up, about the fire, when it struck 
me there was something wrong, so I looked 
again. There were two of the creatures glid- 



DINSMORE ELY 97 

ing around from one rabbit hole to another. 
Their color was cream yellow. After a little 
guessing, I concluded they must be ferrets, so 
I let them live. Suddenly a man called " Oh-ee," 
and a rabbit humped past right by my feet. I 
took a pot shot, but it had me scared and I 
almost hit my foot, it was so close. Two more 
went by and didn't mind my shooting at them. 
They were so close it seemed a pity to shoot 
them, yet that didn't quite explain my missing. 
Well, you know what an old hand I am at rab- 
bit shooting. I was just a little out of practice, 
having fired a shotgun, once when I was twelve 
years old. The blessing was that no one was 
there to see. Then I got one at a good distance, 
and found that it was much easier to hit them at 
a hundred feet than twenty-five. My average 
began to go up, and the first fifteen shots I had 
three rabbits. Then we changed positions, and 
I found that the son had eleven. I don't think 
he had fired more than ten shots. At thirty 
shots I had twelve rabbits, and I felt a little 
more respectable. It was a pipe after you got 
used to it. Then we took a walk about the place 
and went in to lunch. All the food they had 
was from their own place : meat, wild and tame; 
fish from the river near by; and chestnuts, 



98 DINSMORE ELY 

mashed like potatoes and baked. These latter 
are called les marrons. There were also sweet 
cakes, salads, mixed and dressed by M. Duval, 
and — wonder of wonders — American apple 
pie! I ate three pieces, and they had it for 
every meal while I was there. I understand why 
menus are written in French and old novels rave 
on French cuisines. Never did I eat such de- 
licious food. Every dish is served separately 
as a work of art. The service was fine old china, 
with cracks all through it. The knives, forks, 
and spoons were gold plated, and the daughter 
would get up from the table and serve the bread 
if the maid didn't happen to be in the room. 
Everyone eats the food as he gets it hot, and one 
person may be a course behind the others with- 
out causing inconvenience. 

My word, how I enjoyed every minute of It ! 
It would have been a lark any time, but it was 
a humming, white-feathered buzzard of a time 
to one who has been eating in a mess for a 
month. 

Well, that afternoon we hunted some more, 
and I drove the Renault down to see if the plane 
was still where it had fallen. That evening the 
mechanics came with a truck to fetch it, but It 
was too late, and they had to stay at the 



DINSMORE ELY 99 

chateau all night. Then their machine broke, 
and they had to telephone for another. Well, 
I did not get away until after lunch, so we hunted 
some more and played tennis. They all came 
down to the gate to see me off, and truly 
they made me feel that they were as sorry to 
see me go as I was to go — and that was " some 
sorry." 

I've tried to finish this letter and send it off, 
but like all the great things man attempts, it is 
never finished. 

When I left the Chateau du Bois, they gave 
me their address in Paris, where they will go in 
a fortnight; their address at Pau, where they 
go the last of December, and where I shall 
probably go at the same time; and the address 
of their cousins who have a villa a short way 
from Bordeaux (the place where I shall prob- 
ably be perfected on the Nieuport). That 
opens up considerable opportunity to make 
some friends that are really worth while. 

Gee! when things happen here they happen 
in bunches. I have enough more to tell to make 
another letter longer than this. Since I started 
this letter I have finished the school at Tours, 
gotten my brevet, and now I am down at Blois 



100 DINSMORE ELY 



seeing a couple of the best chateaux. 

I am collecting post cards to beat the band. 
They will make a wonderful library for my 
architectural design, as well as a foundation for 
a little series of travelogues I am going to give 
the family, and while I think of It I am growing 
more convinced that when you are young Is 
the time to see the world, especially for the 
architect. When the war Is finished you can 
figure it will take me a year or more to get home. 
The education of travel is so far superior to 
that of school (not "Tech") that there is no 
comparison. 

Love to all, 

Dins. 

Paris, November 4, igi"/. 
Dear Mother: 

You see I am In Paris and am staying at the 
house of my marraine. I wrote you a letter in 
Chateaudun which was lost through my fault. 
I wrote father a letter a week ago and carried 
It till yesterday without mailing. The other 
letter I mailed, which you should receive, left 
Tours over two weeks ago. This all goes to 
prove I am getting careless in my letter writing, 
for goodness knows there has been so much to 



DINSMORE ELY 101 



write about that I scarcely know where to begin. 
In the first place, I am a pilot — no longer an 
eleve pilot. My brevet is gained and I am 
recommended for a Nieuport — that is a fight- 
ing machine — all of which is as it should be. 
They overlooked my smash-up, as it was the 
fault of the motor. 

Having finished at Tours, I went for a day's 
sight-seeing to Blois. There I saw the grand old 
historic chateau of Catherine de' Medici, and 
the beautiful architectural dream, the chateau of 
Chambord. It was a pleasant day, starting at 
six in the morning and ending with a five-mile 
walk between twelve and two-thirty last night. 
Then by a little flower-tossing, I got them to 
extend my permission so as not to include the 
day at Blois, and left for Paris. I came to my 
marraine at eight-thirty in the evening of Satur- 
day, October 29, and she gave me a room. They 
have entertained me most generously ever since. 
I told you of her family in another letter. The 
daughter, who married a captain, looks for all 
the world like Marie Antoinette and keeps up 
an unending flirtation with her husband with 
refined French coquetry, which is a delight to 
watch. The two children of the other daughter 
are jolly little youngsters. We have an hour's 



102 DINSMORE ELY 

romp in the evening, and they have become my 
shadows. I have been doing Paris, as one 
might say. I have visited Napoleon's tomb, 
the Palais de Justice, Sainte Chapelle, the jewel 
of Gothic architecture, Notre Dame de Paris, 
Sacred Heart, the Madeleine, and numerous 
other well-known sights of Paris. I have seen a 
French vaudeville, a French cinema opera, an 
afternoon musical of the first order, and four 
operas : Madame Butterfly^ Werther, Sapho, 
Cavalleria Rusticana, and a little opera comique. 
Never have things come my way stronger to 
make for a pleasant time. Outside of my 
clothes, my expenses for the week will not ex- 
ceed twenty-five dollars, such is the manner of 
French courtesy. 

You should see your son. Never has an Ely 
come so near being a dandy. Picture a modish 
khaki uniform of French cut and the best cloth, 
with a high collar, gold buttons, gold wings on 
the collar, a khaki cap with a gold crescent of 
the Foreign Legion on it, a Sam Brown belt and 
high leather boots of a well-kept mahogany 
brown, and over all, a very distinctive and re- 
fined Burbury coat and gray gloves. The effect 
is worth two hundred and fifty francs for the 
suit, one hundred and sixty-five francs for boots, 



DINSMORE ELY 103 

one hundred and forty francs for overcoat, 
thirty-five francs for belt; everything is of the 
best and will serve as my officer's outfit in the 
U. S. Army with a few minor changes. I felt 
I had better have the wherewithal to dress 
well when I was entertained, and I have not 
regretted it. 

Yesterday I met two Chicago ladies. Some 
time after Christmas one of them might call at 
father's office to say that she saw me. 

The other day when walking from the flying 
school to the station in leaving for Paris, 
Frazier Hale, of Cherry Street, passed me in 
a machine. He yelled, and I did, and that was 
all. There will probably be a growing fre- 
quency of such meetings as time passes. In war 
news we hear of ignominious defeat in the Italian 
sector and good work in the French sector. 
Your war news is more reliable than ours, no 
doubt. I shall follow father's advice as to study 
of the map. The first book on aeronautics ar- 
rived last Saturday and seemed satisfactory, 
though I have not taken time to read more than 
the introduction. I have plenty of general read- 
ing material at my disposal now in the way of 
history, aeronautical study, and novels by classic 
and modern writers. 



104 DINSMORE ELY ■ 

Now, I do not see how anyone could hope to 
be an architect without seeing the works of this 
old country. I never knew what design or in- 
terior decoration or landscape gardening were 
before. Every day reveals a new jewel whose 
impression may leave an idea for future work. 
Certainly the unconscious assimilation of ideas 
and proportions will be invaluable. I am not 
endeavoring to drive myself into following any 
of these new interests, as I feel it essential to 
conserve all physical and nervous energy for 
what will probably be the greatest tax on my 
life at the Front. My natural tastes seem good 
enough for the present to lead me to an enjoy- 
ment of the best, and I am experiencing the nov- 
elty for the first time in my life of living en- 
tirely according to my natural taste — not that 
I have ever been cramped, but family environ- 
ment and educational influence have always dic- 
tated my course in life. Now I am swimming 
entirely alone, and it is pleasant for a new man. 
This living abroad puts one in tune with the 
ways of the world. 

My love to you all. 

Your son, 

DiNSMORE Ely. 



DINSMORE ELY 105 

Dear Father: 

My first experience, a bit exciting, came rather 
early. Oh my second solo flight when I was half 
way around and going with the wind at a height 
of one hundred meters the motor stopped. That 
is about as bad as can happen at such a height 
for a student. The minute your motor stops 
you have to peak at thirty degrees and land into 
the wind. When my motor stopped, I looked 
for a landing, and peaked. The landing was a 
little behind me, so I made a short turn with a 
steep bank and managed to straighten her out 
just in time for a bare landing. It is very diffi- 
cult to turn and bank with a dead motor, and 
I feel rather elated; and the best of it was that 
I was not frightened or worried in the least. 
It all went just as easily and naturally as I be- 
lieved it would when I took up aviation. The 
great problem is not to lose speed, you know. 
In the Nieuport hangars they hang a motto : 
" Loss of speed is death." Well, the field I had 
landed in was a bit rough and weedy, but there 
was a smooth, long stretch adjacent, so I de- 
cided to try to get her out myself. You see, the 
engines we use are Gnome rotary, an archaic 
type, and very impractical. At the field men 
hold the machine while the mechanic adjusts the 



106 DINSMORE ELY 



carbureter, and then at a given signal it is re- 
leased and soars skyward. The charm is that 
when shut off it won't start again till you prime 
it, and the mechanic adjusts the carbureter over 
again for full speed. Well, a Ford was just 
passing, and they stopped and waited to see 
what I'd do. I went over and got a can from 
them to prime the engine with gas, then I 
cranked the thing and when it started up it 
darn near ran away with the poor scared man 
before I could get to the seat, so then I taxied 
the "girl" up to the far end of the field and 
wheeled her around. It takes two hundred 
yards to get to twenty feet height. I had three 
hundred yards to adjust the carbureter in and 
clear a row of trees thirty feet high, into the 
wind, of course. Well, they had explained the 
thing to us, and I had watched the mechanics, so 
I gave it to her and didn't look up till I got the 
engine going. By that time the trees were one 
hundred yards ahead. She rose a little and I 
kept her low till she gained speed, and twenty- 
five yards from the trees I pulled her up and 
she fairly bounded over the road. I made an 
'* S " curve and just got over the field at the 
school when the engine died again, and I came 
down by the bunch with a cylinder burned out. 



DINSMORE ELY 107 

November i^, ^9^7* 
Dear Father: 

Where the sky turns from an azure blue to a 
rosy pink the delicate new moon rests with its 
points toward the evening star. From these two 
jewels of heaven, the sunset sky grades away to 
a misty, mysterious horizon. The gray distance 
is offset with a delicate lacework of the autumn- 
stripped hedge of poplars with their slim, grace- 
ful lattice work, reaching to points in the pink, 
and where the dark earth and the white road 
come to the foreground, two great apple trees 
with their gnarled autumn boughs frame the 
scene of simple beauty as it fades to night. As 
I entered the kitchen of a little old farm house, 
which people who eat there choose to call the 
"Aviator," cheery voices and appetizing odors 
greeted me in preparation for the evening meal. 
The clean tile floor, the whitewashed walls, the 
low-hung, richly stained rafters, and the old wal- 
nut chest by the brick fireplace all made me think 
of Aunt Maggie's old kitchen where the pies 
and the cookies were kept, and that makes me 
think of other fireplaces and other rafters — and 
the folks at home. 

So I just sit down to the oilcloth-covered table 
and try to tell them what a restless, twentieth- 



108 DINSMORE ELY 

century lad thinks of the environment of his par- 
ents' childhood. 

DiNSMORE. 

Dear Family : 

Today started out very foggy, because there 
was no wind. We stood in the field till one 
o'clock waiting for the air to clear. I got a 
machine by four. The next hour contained 
enough excitement to do for the day. The 
planes are like mad little Indian ponies turned 
loose in the field — or, better still, like Pegasus 
bound into the air with a spirit that must be 
tamed by steady nerves and gentle hand. It is 
hard to describe just the feeling which pos- 
sesses one. We are taught the principles and 
the movements that control the machine and 
then we are sent alone into the air to find an 
understanding of them. Perhaps you are turn- 
ing a corner at an angle of forty-five degrees on 
the bank. Suddenly you feel something is 
wrong. The wind whistles louder than usual. 
Is it because you are pointing nose down, or are 
you sliding out over the rim of the curve, or 
down into the center of it? It is one of the 
three, and to correct the wrong one is to make 
worse the other two, yet the correction must be 



DINSMORE ELY 109 

made. Now it Is too late to figure it out, so you 
just correct it without thinking, and wonder 
which fault it was. In an animal we call it in- 
stinct, but there is an instant there which, when 
it passes, leaves a vacuum in the nervous sys- 
tem. The machine climbs like a tiger, and as 
we are not yet permitted to cut down the gas, it 
takes much strength to hold its nose down. I 
made fifteen five-minute rides, and now I'm 
pleasantly tired and relaxed. 

I had ten rides in the eighteen-meter Nieu- 
port and am getting the run of it. It is one of 
the most difficult machines to drive. I had bad 
luck in motors or would have finished today. 
My motor stopped twice when I was twenty-five 
meters from the ground, but I landed without 
mishap. With these machines the wing area is 
so small you head almost straight for the ground 
and just straighten out in time to land. You 
make a tour of five or six miles and mount a 
thousand feet into the air in five minutes — but 
you will be tired of reading this sort of thing 
very soon. The thing to do is to go to some 
aviation field and see it all done. 

One of father's letters arrived with a lot of 
clippings in it. Those clippings are very inter- 
esting. I enjoy them much more than the 



110 DINSMORE ELY 



papers. The Saturday Evening Post is read 
from cover to cover and passed about till the 
pages are thin, so it would fill a big demand. 
Another book on aviation came. I have not yet 
had time to finish the first one. As they go into 
the technical end of things rather deeply, I can 
only study a small amount at a time. Most of 
my Veading lately has been history. 

Dins. 

Bourges, November 7, IQIJ - 
Dear Family : 

I am at Bourges on my way to Avord after my 
happy permission in Paris. As there were no 
train connections I had to stay here over night. 
Well, last Sunday we went to an American 
church, with an all-American service. It seemed 
rather pleasant. In the afternoon we went to 
the Opera Comique to see Werther and Caval- 
leria Rusticana. They were both splendid and 
included some of the best stars. Oh, how I love 
the opera ! 

. . . . I spent Monday afternoon in roam- 
ing about Paris. I went to the Louvre and Gar- 
dens of the Tuileries and Luxembourg, and to 
several of the less important churches. I saw 
St. James's church from the tower of which the 



DINSMORE ELY 111 

bells were rung as a signal on the night of St. 
Bartholomew. I believe I know Paris and its 
sights better now than Chicago, not that I have 
seen everything — one could never do that — 
but just the general layout. I never will get 
tired raving about the architecture. 
My train leaves soon. 

With love, 

Your Son. 

November lo, 1917- 
Dear Father : 

Yours of October 13 received. The letters 
of my family are of more interest and intimacy 
than ever before. You say I should be glad 
you are not in the machine with me to give me 
advice, but I say unto you, " You are the one to 
be glad." If you are worried by the thought of 
what might happen if a steering buckle In an 
automobile should break, how would you feel 
to be hanging on wires and compressed air? 
Once in the air it is a fool's pastime to think of 
what might happen. The god of luck is the 
aviator's saint. Man pits his resource against 
the invisible, and never for an Instant doubts his 
ability. Those who doubt are probably those 
who do not come back. They are much in need 



112 DINSMORE ELY 

of Nieuport pilots, and rushing us through as 
fast as weather permits. 

Cannot write tonight as everybody is telling 
flying stories. 

Good night, 

Your Son. 

November 12, igij- 
Dear Bob : 

Your letter came yesterday, and as I am in a 
great writing mood tonight I shall answer it. 
First, to tell you what we are doing. We are 
now back at the school of Avord. Here we 
learn to fly the Nieuport. A year ago that was 
the fastest plane at the Front and they still use 
them as fighting planes. First we ride in 
double command "twenty-eight's." (Twenty- 
eight means twenty-eight meters square of wing 
surface.) Then we do "twenty-three" double 
command and then are cut loose on them. 
Lastly, we finish with twenty rides solo in an 
"eighteen." I finish the "twenty-eight" class 
tomorrow and will be through at this school 
in ten days. The eighteen-meter machines land 
at ninety miles an hour. They are wonderful 
little things and will do anything in the air. We 
go to work at six in the morning, and return 



DINSMORE ELY US 

at six in the evening, but the hardest work is 
waiting when there is too much wind to fly. We 
build a fire and sit about telling stories and 
making toast. When we cannot get bread we 
just tell stories. When it rains we go in the 
tent and read. I am reading a history of 
France. It is more fun to read history than 
to study it, and I think you know more when 
you get through. Of course I am surrounded 
by all the old castles and battle grounds and 
graves of the warriors of seven centuries. That 
makes a difference. 

There was a bad accident the week before I 
got here. A two-passenger plane struck a solo 
plane in the air. It was a head-on collision, and 
all three aviators were killed. That is a very 
rare accident, though. 

I see America is preparing for five years of 
war. You may get over yet. Write me when- 
ever you can. You do not know how much your 
letters help to buck up a lonely brother some- 
times. 

Your ever loving brother, 

Dins. 



114 DINSMORE ELY 

November /j, /p/7. 
Dear Mother: 

Today was a wonderful, clear, crisp Novem- 
ber day. and we breathed our fill of it. I had 
seven rides in a twenty-eight meter and one in 
a twenty-three meter Nieuport. In life the 
things we look forward to usually fall below 
our expectations, but not so in aviation. In avia- 
tion, every experience so totally eclipses all ex- 
pectations that you realize you were totally 
incapable of imagination in that field. We 
change planes ^\t times in progressing from 
Penguin to Spad. Each change is as great an 
advance and difference as stepping from a box 
car to a locomobile limousine with Westing- 
house shock absorbers. 

The Nieuport is the plane we are using now, 
with a man to give the scale. It has a support- 
ing area of twenty-three square meters. It is the 
fighting plane used at the Front seven or eight 
months ago. 

DiNSMORE. 

November 15, iQi?- 
Dear Mother: 

Things are going quite well. Day before yes- 
terday I left the twenty-eight meter Nieuport 



DINSMORE ELY 115 

class and today finished the twenty-three meter 
class and was advanced. Tomorrow I shall 
finish solo work on the twenty-three's and take 
up eighteen's. The monitors seem to think my 
work fairly good. The little eighteen-meter 
Nieuports are great. They are small and racy, 
with a wing spread of twenty-five feet. They 
have fine speed and land at eighty-five miles an 
hour. You land by cutting off the power and 
pointing the nose for the ground. By puUing 
the tail down she slows up and finally drops a 
yard to the ground. It is a very precise sport. 
You would like it fine above the clouds, 
Mother. It is most beautiful and dazzling as 
the sun's rays bounce along on the snowy bil- 
lows, and you can swoop down and skim the 
crest of the cloud waves till the frost turns the 
wires to silver and your cheeks sting red in the 
mist. 

DiNSMORE. 

Ecole d^ Aviation, Pan, November 22, iQiy. 
Dear Father : 

This is the most pleasantly situated and best 
regulated camp I have been in yet. Pau itself 
is on a little plateau overlooking a valley with a 
river and surrounded by the foothills of the 



116 DINSMORE ELY 

* 

Pyrenees. On the sky line to the south and west 
of the beautiful snow-capped peaks, 4,000 feet 
high. 

In this environment we are to attain profi- 
ciency In the handling of the war plane. The 
trip down from Avord was a tedious one, with a 
pleasant break of day at Toulouse. I came 
down with two Frenchmen who were excellent 
company. We spent two nights on the train. 
i\ll the sleeping cars are used at the Front to 
carry wounded, so we slept sitting up. Sleeping 
cars are not so common in Europe, I guess. 
When I woke up yesterday morning the charac- 
ter of the country had changed from the rolling 
valleys of Touraine to the more rocky and 
broken country of Toulouse. The buildings 
were brick instead of stone, and one could see 
the round arch and barrel vault of Romanesque 
influence, combined with the low broken roofs 
of Spanish architecture. Here and there ap- 
peared the beautiful pines which suggested the 
blue of the Mediterranean and cliff villages, as 
pictured in paintings of Naples and southern 
Italy. Arriving in Toulouse about nine in the 
morning, we washed and had breakfast at a very 
pleasant hotel restaurant. It had the atmos- 
phere of a good Paris restaurant, but the 



DINSMORE ELY 117 

waitresses were of the brunette southern type, 
with sparkling eyes and impetuous activity. We 
liked it so well that we had all three meals 
there. At lunch, the table next to us was occu- 
pied by a good-looking gentleman with a dark 
moustache, who evidently was suing the favor of 
the proprietress' very attractive daughter, 
therefore the waitress who attended him was 
gifted with ability and liberty. She caught the 
spirit of her position, and ushered in each new 
delicacy with a pomp and grimace, playing the 
part of bearer of the golden platter and king's 
jester with a flippant coquetry and grace which 
was more entertaining than any show I've seen 
in France. 

We spent the day in seeing the town. It is 
rich in monuments of history and art. The ca- 
thedral of St. Etienne is a monument of brick 
which opened to me a whole new field of possi- 
bility in the use of that material. It combines 
the mass of Romanesque with the Gothic form 
of an early vitality. The great basilica of St. 
Sernin is truly Romanesque and a perfect exam- 
ple of the Provincial style which introduced the 
Romanesque influence into France. We saw the 
paintings in the Hotel de Ville, done by masters 
of the city of Toulouse, who were of the Ecole 



118 DINSMORE ELY 

des Beaux-Arts. These works were distinctly 
of the most modern school, and they appeal to 
me more than anything I ever have seen. Won- 
derful composition and lighting effect, combined 
with a freshness of color and naturalness which 
shows what really can be done with paint. 

The large museum was in a great old monas- 
tery, built of hand-made bricks by the monks of 
St. Augustine in the ninth century. It is still 
beautifully complete, with cloistered court and 
brick-vaulted chapel. Past peoples live in monu- 
ments they leave. Monuments express the life 
and art and religion of a people. To build such 
monuments is the work of an architect. This is 
the greatest thing that ever happened to me. It 
shows me the purpose and benefit of education; 
for the rest of my life what I read will be ab- 
sorbed with so much more interest and insight 
and profit. Maybe the course of technology is 
narrow and technical, but I find that never did I 
want to study and learn by reading as at pres- 
ent. It has waked me to the fact that I have 
tastes and the right to follow them as I please. 
And I can, follow them in my many spare hours 
without detracting from my service in the Cause. 

Your letter containing clippings and cartoons 
was very entettaining. I beheve cartoons serve 



DINSMORE ELY 119 

the purpose of keeping alive the trend of pubhc 
thought without being filled up with unreliable 
censored facts and rumors. 
Love to you all. 

Your son, 

DiNSMORE. 

November 2g, igij. 
Dear Family: 

Today was Thanksgiving, and we all had the 
very pleasant surprise of a day of repos given 
us by the captain that we might be present at a 
banquet given us by the American colony at Pau. 
It was held at one of the good hotels and had all 
the proper characteristics of a regular Thanks- 
giving dinner. There were forty-two of us 
there. After the meal we had some songs from 
local talent, which were of no mean variety, and 
then we went to a moving picture show which 
was rather a failure except as a place to digest 
an excellent and more than hearty meal. 

My, but the machines we have now are a joy 
to run. They climb, they turn, they dive, and 
recover as you think. You have but to wish in 
the third dimension and you are there. It is 
beyond description. You sit comfortably be- 
hind a little windshield without glasses and 



120 DINSMORE ELY 

watch the eountry far below. You forget the 
motor and space, and speed until suddenly some- 
thing of interest causes you to lean out and you 
are struck in the face by a gust of wind which 
bends your head back and pumps your breath 
back into your lungs. Then you know what 
speed means. Soon your motor begins to miss, 
and you become worried and look for a place 
to land. You find the fields not more than one 
hundred feet square. You glance at the alti- 
meter and find that you have unconsciously 
climbed to an altitude where the air is light, and 
your motor pants, so you make a readjustment, 
glance back at the school fifteen miles behind, 
which you left eight minutes ago, and go on your 
way. 

Tomorrow I do spirals in fifteen-meter ma- 
chines, and then go to vol de group. There we 
learn to fly in group formation and keep relative 
positions. They play " follow the leader" and 
"stump" in that class — some class! Then 
come acrobatics. 

Dins. 

Dear Family : 

This is a country of beautiful views, wonder- 
ful colorings of distant hills and the snow- 



DINSMORE ELY 121 

capped mountains as changeable as the sea. We 
fly among the foothills and look down upon the 
beautiful estates and castle ruins nestling among 
them. There has been little sun, but the fact 
that one catches but passing glimpses of the 
mountains among the clouds does not detract 
from their charm, and the rnoisture in the air 
makes the coloring richer. I am in no hurry 
to leave. 

Erich Fowler, one who has been with us from 
the beginning, and one of our best liked and 
most congenial fellow-sportsmen, was the first 
among our crowd to be killed. He fell five hun- 
dred meters with full motor and did not regain 
consciousness. It is believed he fainted in the 
air, as the controls were found intact and no 
parts of the machine missing. He was buried 
today at Pau. When the fellows find no way to 
express their feelings it is taken laconically, and 
the subject has been dropped already. No one 
is unnerved or frightened by the experience. 
Fortunately the ego is strong enough in every 
man to make him feel the fault would not have 
been his in such a case, and he believes in his 
own good fortune enough to be confident noth- 
ing will happen to his machine. 

This Is the school where the poor aviators are 



122 DINSMORE ELY 



weeded out. The men who have dissipated re- 
lentlessly have lost their nerve and dropped out. 
The poorer drivers have voluntarily gone to 
bombing planes. The physically unfit have 
dropped off in the hospitals, and here those who 
have not the head to fly come to grief. Four out 
of five of the Russians who enter this school 
leave in a hearse. Some national characteristic 
makes it almost impossible for them to complete 
the course. 

Out of twenty-five machines broken In a fall, 
one man Is killed. Out of ten men killed, nine 
deaths are caused by inefficiency on the part of 
the pilot. They say I have more than the ordi- 
nary allotment of requirements of a good pilot. 
My assets are perfect health and a clear mind to 
offset the chance of misfortune which may stand 
against me. Knowing me, realize that all the 
statements I have made are conservative. 

In a letter I received from Viscountess Duval 
the other day she said: "As you are interested 
in art, it will be a pleasure to show you through 
our galleries when you come to Paris. They 
are'as fine as any in the city." Her husband is 
evidently a writer of some distinction. They 
are coming to Pau and I hope will arrive before 
I leave. 



DINSMORE ELY 123 

I shall be quite busy for the next week and not 
have a great deal of time to write. No letters 
have reached me from home for over three 
weeks. 

Yours with love and wishes for a very Merry 
Christmas. 

Your son, 

DiNSMORE. 

Not till the last line did I realize that 
Christmas was so near. Naturally, the war 
Christmas will be more conservative than ever, 
but I hope that real festivities will continue. 
America is far enough from the Front to keep 
the sound of battle from breaking the rhythm of 
the dance. I should like to be back there for 
three or four days of the Christmas vacation, 
with a fair round of dancing and turkey and 
calling on old friends. I shall make every ef- 
fort to spend Christmas at my marraine^s. 

My present to mother is a silver frame con- 
taining a picture of her son in war array of 
leathers and furs, helmet and goggles, standing 
by the propeller of France's fastest war plane. 
To father I give my croix de guerre representing 
the first Boche I brought down, and to Bob goes 
a penholder shaped like a propeller and made 



124 DINSMORE ELY 



from a splinter of the propeller of my first Boche 
plane — all imaginary gifts, but true. 

Your son, 

DiNSMORE. 

December i , igiy. 
Dear Bob : 

Your letter written November lo came yes- 
terday with a lot of other letters and about five 
packages. Gee ! it was just like Christmas. We 
all sat about the stove and ate nuts and dates, 
figs and candy, till our stomachs ached. You 
can't appreciate what wonderful and necessary 
things figs and prunes are till you go without 
sweet things by the month. Take a prune, for 
instance. If I could have a candied prune for 
every mile I walked, I would use up a pair of 
shoes every week. Myrtle sent me three cans 
of salted nuts; and a girl in Boston sent me a 
surprise package. 

Well, Bob, I am a real pilot now. I can play 
"stump the leader" with anybody. Turning 
loops and somersaults and corkscrew turns are 
nothing any more. The hardest things to do are 
the " roundversments," "barrel roll" and "ver- 
tical bank." 

Here they give us a machine and we go up 



DINSMORE ELY 125 

and do what we like for two hours. One day I 
went 'way up over the mountain peaks and cir- 
cled close around the highest one; then I went 
down in the valleys and played chicken hawk 
over the villages and followed the railroad train 
down the valley. You should see the cows and 
sheep run when my shadow crossed their fields. 
You can head right for the mountainside and 
then whirl around and skim along with the fir 
trees passing close by — twice as fast as an ex- 
press train. 

Inside the machine the seat is comfortable and 
you huddle down behind the windshield as com- 
fortable as can be. The wind roars by so loudly 
that it drowns out the noise of the motor. Be- 
fore long your ears are accustomed to the sound 
and you feel as if you were slipping along as 
silently as a fish. 

Another day we went sixty-five miles to Biar- 
ritz. It is a bathing resort on the ocean. I 
went down over the ocean and circled around 
the lighthouse on the way back and then sped 
down the beach just over the water line. I didn't 
see any submarines, but maybe they saw me first 
and beat it. I got back to the school just before 
dark and didn't have gasoline enough left to go 
five miles. They gave it to me for being gone so 



126 DINSMORE ELY 

long, but it was a great trip. The next day I 
tried for an altitude and made next to the high- 
est in this school — 6,500 meters or 21,320 feet. 
It wasn't much joy. I froze three finger tips 
and frosted my lungs I think, and had chills and 
headache till supper time. For an hour I 
pounded my hands together while steering with 
my knees. There were six strata of clouds. The 
last was above me and at the top. I didn't see 
the ground for an hour and a half. When you 
realize that they do their fighting between five 
and six thousand feet, you see what endurance 
it will take. They are right to make the test 
high for aviators. 

The most fortunate of us are being sent to 
Cazaux on the coast near Bordeaux. There 
they have all kinds of target practice from an 
aeroplane. You shoot at floats in a lake by 
diving at them, and at sausages dragged through 
the air by another plane. Well, we have done 
some of that here. We went up and dropped a 
parachute and then pretended it was a German 
plane and dived at it back and forth. Believe 
me, it was no easy matter to aim a gun into that 
machine while you are diving down at a speed 
of 250 miles an hour. Then we go in pairs for 
team work and dive at it turn about. 



DINSMORE ELY 127 

The last few days we have been having a 
great time. We divided into two groups and 
called one the French and the other the Boche, 
and we go out and hunt each other up and down 
the valley. We have sham combats and keep 
our squadron formation during the maneuvers. 
We do this for ten days before going to Cazaux. 
I am unusually lucky to get so much of this 
training, and am pleased about it, though I'm 
afraid I'll not be in Paris for Christmas. (I 
hope you will write and tell me about your dance 
and your Christmas holidays, and I'll tell you 
what I do Christmas.) As for this war, I'm 
not saying a word, but I wouldn't be surprised 
if you and your children would get a chance to 
fight in it. There have been hundred-year wars 
before now, and our modern civilization is not 
so small that it can't reproduce what has been 
done before. But if every American has to re- 
turn to the United States and start producing, 
raising, and training soldiers for the next fifty 
years to beat them, we'll thrash them, by God, if 
it leaves America a desert and Germany a hole 
in the ground. 

The shoes the family sent me are a perfect fit 
and just what I wanted, and the socks were a 
surprise. As for that surprise box, I will con- 



128 DINSMORE ELY 



tinue to enjoy that for many a day. I ate a little 
and passed around a little each day. 
Good night, Bob. 
Don't lose any sleep over studies. 

Your loving brother, 

Dins. 
Merry Christmas — Happy New Year. 

December 6, IQIJ- 
Dear Family: 

The past few days have been wonderful in 
weather and accomplishments. I have been see- 
ing southern France at the rate of a hundred 
miles an hour — five hours a day. Yesterday 
morning I flew to Notre Dame de Lourdes. It 
is a place to which thousands pilgrimage each 
year to be healed by the flow of waters there. 
It is a beautiful little village at the base of the 
mountains, and is hidden in the shadow of steep 
cliffs. From there I wandered among the foot- 
hills and circled over the little mountain ham- 
lets. In the afternoon I headed straight for Pic 
du Midi. It is the second highest mountain in 
this vicinity. In three-quarters of an hour I 
was a thousand meters above it. I swooped 
down around It and took pictures, with it in the 
foreground. Then I came back by way of 



DINSMORE ELY 129 

another canyon, and arrived at the school at 
dusk. After a lot of foolish monkey business, I 
spent the last hour running at a height of two 
hundred feet with my motor throttled 'way 
down. Sitting low in my seat, hardly touching 
the controls, skimming the tree tops in the quiet 
hazy evening air, it made me think of how 
father used to love to see the old White throttle 
down to two miles an hour, the difference being 
that I had throttled down to ninet}^ 

This morning four of us went down to Biar- 
ritz and out over the ocean. I went down and 
circled around the lighthouse. All these things 
are forbidden by the school, but as men are 
daily risking their lives in gaining proficiency in 
flight, it is difficult to waive a punishment, so 
they all do it. 

DiNSMORE. 

Hotel de rUnivers, Tours, December 8, IQIJ- 
Dear Family : 

I am too tired tonight to write a real letter, 
but all the stuff arrived, and it was great. The 
shoes and surprise package with the Christmas 
card, and letters from October 20 to November 
10 arrived. If you knew how we gloat over 
those prunes and dates and figs and candies and 



130 DINSMORE ELY 

nuts, you would — send some more. Thank you 
much. 

I am now a real flyer in every sense of the 
word, and am working five hours every day. 
I'll tell you all about it soon. 

Your Son. 

Pan, France, Saturday , December i^, IQI?- 
Dear Family : 

We are having sham battles every day. They 
thought a few of us good enough to hold over 
for extra training ten days and send us to a spe- 
cial shooting school as Cazaux. This increases 
our efficiency some fifty per cent before going to 
the Front and gives us that much more chance. 
I have had more training than the average, due 
to more luck and interest. Today I shot a ma- 
chine gun at a pointed aeroplane. Out of eighty 
shots, of which three bullets failed to leave the 
gun, sixty-seven hit the square target; of these 
sixty-seven, twenty-seven struck the plane and 
the man in it. It is the best score I have seen, 
and encourages me. This shooting is very vital. 

We leave here in about two days, and remain 
at Cazaux about ten. Then we go to Paris and 
wait for our call to the Front. I'll be in Bor- 
deaux Christmas, and in Paris New Years. At 



DINSMORE ELY 131 

the Front we go into different escadrilles, 
French, and spend the first month as apprentices 
before going to fight the Boche. We attend 
lectures and fly all the time here and sleep 
twelve hours a day. It is a full-sized job, and 
enough for me. It may be a beautiful life in 
training, but I am beginning to realize that the 
real service will take all that war requires of any 
man. In fact, it will be all that I anticipated 
before entering the work. There has been a 
period in which I thought it rather an easy 
branch of the service. But I am much better 
fitted for it than the average man doing it. I 
was a little afraid I would be too conservative; 
not devilish enough — but I guess my reason 
does not curb my abandon. There is not much 
to be told just now, as we follow a pretty 
steady routine from 6 A.M. to 9 130 p.m. The 
weather has been beautiful; frost on the trees 
and mist on the mountains, lighted by a rose- 
colored winter's sun in beauty unsurpassed. I 
sketch a little and read a little and struggle to 
keep up my correspondence. Family letters are 
slow in coming, but have been delayed or lost, 
no doubt. 

Good night, and love to all from 

DiNSMORE. 



132 DINSMORE ELY 

Ecole de Tir, Cazaux, December i8, igi'J- 
Dear Family Mine: 

Here I am back near Bordeaux where I 
started on my tour of France. We came to this 
school understanding that we were to be abused 
by the severest military discipline, but we are 
delighted to find that they continue to spoil us. 
We have as pleasant barracks as are to be had in 
France. We are permitted to eat in the sons- 
officers' mess — a very special mark of favor, 
which is really a break of military discipline — 
and to cap it all, they are giving the whole camp 
repos to go to Paris for Christmas and for New 
Years. That is pretty nice. You know we are 
really only corporals — that Is to say, privates 
of no rank — yet they really treat us like com- 
missioned officers. 

My affection for the French people continues 
to grow. They are not more gallant in, action 
than the American is at heart, and they are less 
gallant at heart, but the French politeness which 
irritates some people seems to me to express a 
desire to be inoffensive to one's fellows. 

Our interpreter and lecturer speaks English 
very well, and Is an excellent fellow. He has 
served in the Arabian division of the French 
Army, and in the French lines also. He says 



DINSMORE ELY 133 

the Arabians are volunteer veterans of the 
French Army and make some of their best 
fighters. They cannot stand bombardment and 
so are used only for attacks. They go over the 
top with bayonets, swords, revolvers, cutlasses, 
and war cries. They throw the weapons away 
in the order mentioned, as they close with the 
enemy. At the finish, they are using only cut- 
lasses, and they take no prisoners. They fight 
like devils, and ask no quarter. We see many 
of them around the aviation school. They have 
fine, sensitive features, and those novel, keen but 
dreamy eyes of the Orient. Their carriage is 
proud, and their smile disarming. 

The Senegalese are another interesting factor 
In the French fighting forces. They, too, are 
volunteers, and of the finest aggressive troops 
used only In attacks. Great, stalwart blacks 
from Africa, with intelligent faces and a rather 
indolent air, which impresses one as masking a 
latent virility. They little suggest the man-eat- 
ing head-hunters that they are. They are of 
many tribes, and are distinguished by a tribal 
mark In the form of great scars, which have 
mutilated their features since childhood. One 
will have great symmetrical slashes cutting each 
cheek diagonally; another a large cross upon his 



134 DINSMORE ELY 

forehead; another a ring of little pie cuts en- 
closing his eyes, nose, and mouth, and anyone 
able to remember their strange name can recog- 
nize the tribe by the mark. 

They tell some terrible stories of these men. 
It Is rumored that at this camp two of them 
went wild under the Influence of liquor and 
killed and ate two members of an enemy tribe. 
In an attack these men are worse than the.Arabs 
and outbutcher the Huns. The Germans fear 
them like death. In the advance, when they 
come upon a German who may be playing 'pos- 
sum, they drive the bayonet In an Inch or so to 
test him out and sink It to the hilt If he moves. 
They charge with their teeth showing, and do 
their nicest work with a weapon which Is a cross 
between a butcher's cleaver and a corn knife. 
They are called "trench cleaners" and return 
with strings of human ears and heads, which 
after boiling make good skull trophies. Yet 
these vicious Africans make reliable soldiers, 
and one sees them standing guard night and day 
In prison camps and aviation schools. 

There Is a great Russian camp near here in 
which thousands of Russians are held in deten- 
tion. There was a mutiny of Russian troops In 
the French lines and they sent them down here. 



DINSMORE ELY 135 



They will not fight or work, but only wander 
about the landscape eating good food. Some- 
thing will, no doubt, be done with them as soon 
as it is possible to focus on the Russian question, 
but this is cause enough for the French to hate 
the Russians. A man in Russian uniform is 
mobbed in the streets of Paris now. Officers 
there are forced to go about in civilian clothes. 
It is very hard on some of the conscientious avia- 
tors who are anxious to fight. For a time they 
were quite broken-hearted and disconsolate. But 
now it has been arranged that Russian esca- 
drilles will be formed as part of the French serv- 
ice. One of these Russians, with whom I've 
struck quite a friendship, is a great, six-foot-two 
fellow, with a splendid face and a genial nature. 
He has served three years in the Russian cav- 
alry, and was describing their life. They travel 
in groups of six for reconnaissance work and are 
gone from their companies days at a time. One 
will forage the meat, another the bread, another 
the drink, and so on. Their experiences are fas- 
cinating, but too long to tell here. He spoke 
highly of the valor of the Cossacks. He said he 
had seen a Cossack attack an entire company of 
German infantry single-handed. (As he told 
it, a light came in his eyes and he lowered his 



136 DINSMORE ELY 

head, making gestures with his big hands. His 
name is Redsiffsky.) The Cossack drew up in 
front of the Germans, looked on one side and 
then the other, drew his long saber and rais- 
ing in his saddle charged into the heart of them. 
His great frame swayed and his saber cut circles 
of blue light about his horse's head as he slashed 
down man after man. A German's arm would be 
severed as it raised to strike; a German's head 
would roll down its owner's back; a German's 
body would open from neck to crotch. Still the 
Cossack on rearing horse slashed through and 
the Germans crowded in. Then the Cossack's 
mount went down, stabbed from beneath, and 
with a final slash, the Russian threw his saber 
and drew his poniard from his belt. He ripped 
and stabbed at the Germans as they closed in 
for the final sacrifice. His life was marked by 
seconds then, but every second paid till a telling 
musket in full swing descended on his skull. 
When the Germans withdrew, nine of their 
number stayed behind and seven left with aid. 
Of the Russian, nothing was to be found. The 
German revenge had been complete, but a Cos- 
sack had died. 

Your Son. 



DINSMORE ELY 137 

December ig, iQ^Y- 
Dear Uncle : 

Please consider this a Christmas letter. It 
will not arrive on Christmas, It isn't even written 
on Christmas, but the Christmas spirit is re- 
sponsible for its writing, and wishes for a 
"Merry Christmas" and "Happy New Year" 
go with it to you. Aunt Virgie, and all my Cleve- 
land friends. 

There are a whole bunch of us sitting at the 
same table writing home. We have just dis- 
covered that we are to have permission to Paris 
for Christmas. The result is that it has required 
three-quarters of an hour for me to write this 
much. Between the silences are bursts of con- 
versation connected by laughter. 

We have now arrived at the last stage of 
aerial training In France. It Is a school of spe- 
cial merits, and the best of Its kind. Not only 
that, but It Is also a very pleasant place to live. 
The barracks are situated in orderly rows in a 
wood of Norway pine bordering a large lake. 
From the shores long piers and rows of low 
hangars painted gray and white run out into 
the water, forming harbors. In the little har- 
bors, speed boats with khaki awnings and ma- 
chine guns on prow and stern He anchored In 



138 DINSMORE ELY 

flotillas, and hydroaeroplanes are drawn up in 
rows on the docks. Flags float, and sailors and 
soldiers in the uniforms of five nations move 
about in military manner. From one broad pier 
containing a row of shooting pavilions, the rat- 
tle of musketry and light artillery keeps the air 
tense. The sky line is dotted with man-flown 
water birds going and coming, and off in the dis- 
tance the chase machines at practice look like 
dragon flies as they swoop and whirl about the 
drifting balloon which is their target. Though 
it has the sound and aspect of war, there is the 
spirit of a carnival present. 

Our work consists of lectures, target practice, 
and air training. In the lectures we learn the 
science of gun construction and that of marks- 
manship in aviation. It is a science, too. Con- 
sidering that the target and shooter are both 
moving at the greatest speed of man, allowance 
must be made instantaneously without instru- 
ments for the speed of each plane. The angle 
of their flight is in three dimensions, and in ad- 
dition there is the speed of the bullet to be con- 
sidered. Of course, each plane type of the 
enemy has its own speed, which varies according 
to whether it is climbing or diving. Practice 
must make all this calculation second nature. 



DINSMORE ELY 139 

The calculation made, we are then ready to try 
our ability in directing the course of an aero- 
plane in carrying out the calculation. The tar- 
get practice consists of shooting clay pigeons 
with shotgun and rifle, shooting carbines at fixed 
and floating targets and shooting floating targets 
from the observer's seat of an aeroplane. The 
third branch is shooting from a chase mono- 
plane; we shoot at balloons and sausages towed 
by other machines, and dive at marks in the 
water and on the ground. It is great sport. 

In twenty days we leave here. We hope to 
be at the Front. 

I must eat now. Love to all. 

Yours ever, 

Dins. 

December ig, iQi?- 
My Dear Mrs. Halbert: 

After all, it is the surprises that add the most 
spice, and it was certainly a pleasant surprise to 
receive your knit helmet. As a matter of fact, 
no gift could have been more aptly chosen. The 
only helmet I had was knit by a girl friend whose 
enthusiasm was greater than her skill; it no 
doubt represented much painstaking, but ro- 
mance will not keep the head warm nor the 



140 DINSMORE ELY 

ravelings out of one's eyes when aloft, and I had 
wished hard and oft for a helmet of just the 
type you sent ; others had them. Thank you so 
much for it, it fits perfectly. 

You probably know something of how my 
time has been spent. I am still in the LaFay- 
ette Flying Corps of the French Foreign Legion. 
We have been through four French schools of 
aviation and are now as good pilots as can be 
made without experience at the Front. We are 
now working in machines the same as are used 
at the Front, and engage daily in target practice 
and sharpshooting as well as the theory of gun- 
manship. We have been trained for pilots in 
the class machines, that is, fighting monoplane 
biplanes. They travel at a speed of from ninety 
to one hundred and fifty miles an hour; in a dive 
they will go two hundred and fifty or so. Aerial 
acrobatics in these machines are like a morning 
swim, and they have the appearance of a clipped- 
wing dragon fly. The life is wonderful and 
healthy and full of thrills. Every flight brings 
a new experience. We have flown circles around 
the highest peaks of the Pyrenees and swooped 
over the bathers at Biarritz. We have played 
hide-and-seek in the clouds and fought sham 
battles above them. One day I went to an alti- 



DINSMORE ELY 141 

tude of 21,500 feet and froze three finger tips; 
I came down out of the sunshine through a snow 
storm and landed in the rain after sunset. Such 
changes were never possible before this age. 
They are a great strain on the system, and it is 
resisting that strain which is an aviator's real 
work. The rest is play and sport. 

I would like to write more but must go to 
bed. Thank you again for your thoughtfulness. 
My best ^vishes for a happy, prosperous New 
Year to the Halbert family. 

• As ever, sincerely, 

DiNSMORE. 

December 28, IQIJ- 
Dear Family: 

I awake to the melody of the same reveille 
which brings ten million soldiers to action over 
the world each morning; the same bugle which 
sounds the end of the night's bombardment, and 
the beginning of the day's carnage on battle 
fronts from the North Sea to the Mediter- 
ranean. I yawn, stretch, lie in ten or fifteen 
minutes of delicious indecision and then dress 
sitting on the edge of my cot. My underwear 
in the daytime is my night clothes; socks are 
changed almost every week, dried of the damp- 



142 DINSMORE ELY 

ness of the day by the warmth of the night in 
bed; my sweater and shirt also work twenty- 
four hours a day. The muffler mother knitted 
for my neck is a fine pillow; my great .sheepskin 
coat — my greatest comfort and the envy of of- 
ficers — plays the comforter; all these are the 
constant guardians of the warmth of my body. 
It is they, and not parade dress that should be 
allowed to wear war's honors if they are worn 
for it is they who have served. Then I rush 
out and wash hands and face dutifully in cold 
water. Then I hasten to my breakfast — three 
slices of bread and butter. The bread is free, 
but the butter costs Hvt cents, twenty-five cen- 
times in French money, and is eaten while walk- 
ing to the field. During the morning I fly per- 
haps an hour and a half. I return to lunch and 
an hour's repose. Another hour or so of flying 
and a lecture occupy the afternoon. On the way 
home at four o'clock we stop in at a little shanty 
where three amiable and good-looking country 
girls serve us with oysters and jam and choco- 
late. The oysters are better than blue points, 
and cost ten cents a dozen. We talk and sing 
and walk home. At six I have dinner and after 
dinner write letters till weary. Then I go to 
bed. 



DINSMORE ELY 143 

The war's toll has been 3,000,000 lives or so. 
A fourth of the ships are sunk. The great 
nations will be bankrupted. Will we dare speak 
of God? Will architecture be a good pro- 
fession after the war? What is one man in all 
this? I go to bed each night trying to get a 
perspective of life and the world and my place. 

DiNSMORE Ely. 

December 28, igij. 
Dear Family: 

My Christmas was spent in Paris with my 
marraine. There was snow on the ground. On 
Christmas Eve I went to the great Paris Grand 
Opera House. It is a monument to the artistic 
appreciation of the French public, and as a piece 
of architecture it is a masterpiece. As you 
ascend its grand stairway and pass through the 
foyer and grand balconies into the gorgeous 
theater, you feel the power of the master de- 
signers and builders and artists who contributed 
to its conception. The opera was Faust. The 
French singers are no better musically but they 
are splendid actors, which is not the case in 
American opera. The love scene in Faust was 
done with the taste of Sothern's and Marlowe's 
Romeo and Juliet. The Faust ballet was splen- 



144 DINSMORE ELY 



did. Oh, how I enjoyed that evening. On 
Christmas day I went twice to see David Reed, 
whom I liked so well in the Ambulance Unit, 
and who has been sick in the hospital with grip 
and a broken arm. He is one of those the war 
cannot soil. 

My marraine's grandchildren gave me a big 
box of candied fruit, which I found in my shoes 
on Christmas morning. I gave the httle girl 
a doll, dressed in " Old Glory," and the boy an 
American pocket flashhght. The train left at 
eight on Christmas evening. My four comrades 
and I met in our reserved compartment and had 
a very pleasant journey back to Cazaux, arriv- 
ing at ten-thirty in the morning. We all had a 
good time telling of our merry Christmas. The 
cakes and chocolate which my marraine gave me 
helped to fill five empty stomachs at five in the 
morning. 

My worst experience in the air was awaiting 
me. We flew in the afternoon. I took a ma- 
chine and a parachute and climbed to i,8oo 
meters. We were only supposed to climb to 
1,400, but I disobeyed and it probably saved 
my life. I threw out the parachute and took a 
couple of turns at it. After diving at the thing 
and mounting again, I started into a " round- 



DINSMORE ELY 145 

versment " with my eyes on the parachute. Un- 
consciously, I went into a loop and stopped in 
the upside-down position, where I hung by my 
belt. I cut the motor, and grabbed a strut to 
hold myself In my seat. The machine fell in its 
upside-down position till it gained terrific speed, 
then It slowly turned over Into a nose dive, and 
I came out In a tight spiral which slowly widened 
into a circle at ligne de vol, but the controls were 
almost useless, and it took all my strength to 
keep from diving Into the ground. You know 
what skidding is, so you can Imagine what loss 
of control In an automobile going at high speed 
would be, but you cannot Imagine what loss of 
control of an aeroplane Is any more than a 
lumberjack can Imagine a million dollars. 

When a machine Is upside down, the stress 
comes on the wrong side of the wings and Is 
apt to spring them. My plane had fallen a 
thousand meters, and the wings had been thrown 
out of adjustment so that the controls were bare- 
ly able to correct the change. I did not regain 
control of any sort until I was 400 meters from 
the ground, and then I could do nothing but 
spiral to the left. In that fall, when I found 
I could not control the machine, I believed it 
was my last flight. It was the first time I ever 



146 DINSMORE ELY 



had been conscious of looking death squarely 
in the face. After the first hundred meters of 
fall, I was perfectly aware of the danger. I was 
wholly possessed in turn by doubt, fear, resigna- 
tion (it was just there that I was almost fool 
enough to give up), anger (that I should think 
of such a thing), and, finally realization that 
only cool thinking would bring me out alive — 
and it did! From 400 meters I spiraled down 
with barely enough motor to keep me from fall- 
ing, in order that the strain on the control would 
be minimum. The old brain was working clearly 
then, for I made a fine adjustment of the throttle 
and gasoline — just enough to counteract the re- 
sistance of controls, crossed in order to counter- 
act the bent wings, and just enough to let the 
plane sink fast enough so that it would hit the 
ground into the wind in the next turn of the 
spiral, which I could not avoid. Allowing for 
the wind, I managed to control the spiral just 
enough to land on the only available landing 
ground in the vicinity. The landing was per- 
fect, but the machine rolled into a ditch and 
tipped up on its nose. As I had cut the 
motor just before landing, the propeller was 
stopped and not a thing was broken. If the 
wing had been bent a quarter of an inch more, 



DINSMORE ELY 147 

they would have carried me home. The ma- 
chines they use here are old ones, and that was 
probably responsible for the accident. This 
weak spot of the Nieuport caused many deaths 
before anyone ever survived to tell what had 
happened. Again the gods were with me, and 
I lived to be the wiser. 

When I undid my belt and climbed out of the 
machine my hands were never steadier nor my 
mind more tranquil. Many Russians from the 
detention camp near by swarmed around, and 
I set them to work righting the plane and wheel- 
ing it over to a post, where an American was on 
guard. 

Leaving the machine In his care, I hit cross- 
country for the aviation field. As I walked 
through the brushwood, the beauties of nature 
were possessed with renewed charm, the sea 
breeze laden with the scent of pine seemed a 
sweeter incense, the clouds were more billowy, 
my steps were wondrously buoyant, for I felt 
like one whom the gods had given special privi- 
lege to return among the treasures of his child- 
hood. The passing of death's shadow Is a 
stimulus to the charm of living. 

Today I had an hour and a half of flying, and 
engaged In a sham combat of half an hour with 



148 DINSMORE ELY 

another pilot. We both killed each other 
several times. 

It is rumored that a plot was discovered in 
the Russian camp. They were to attack the 
camp here today at two o'clock and seize the 
armory. They had all the machine guns and 
armored planes ready and a guard around the 
school and camp, but nothing came of it. It 
would have furnished good target practice. 

We get another permission New Years, but 
the trip to Paris is a long one, so I shall stay in 
Bordeaux. An invitation from Countess Duval 
for Christmas dinner at Arcachon was too late 
to reach me. I shall pay a call, as it is only an 
hour on the train from here. 

Filla St. Jean, Arcachon, January i , igi8. 
My Dear Family : 

Happy New Year. Fortune has again been 
very kind to me. You will remember the 
Duvals who were so kind to me when I had a 
forced landing at La Ferte-Imbault. When I 
left them, they gave me the address of their 
cousins at Arcachon, and said to be sure and 
let them know when I came down to Cazaux, 
so that they could write to their cousins, and 
give me an opportunity to meet more people of 



DINSMORE ELY 149 

such charming hospitality. An invitation reach- 
ing me after my return from Christmas in Paris, 
invited me to Christmas dinner here at the 
Villa St. Jean, where I am writing. I acknowl- 
edged the invitation, and received another one 
for New Years dinner. I said I would call two 
days before New Years to pay my respects, and 
it was then that the Marchioness Duval asked 
me to come New Years. I remained that night 
and returned to the school, where four of us 
had to do patrol duty over the Russian camp. 
Returning to Arcachon that evening that I 
might stay at a hotel and so not have to rise 
for the early train, chance caused me to run 
across the Viscount Duval, who was returning 
on the same train from Bordeaux. He insisted 
that I return with him and spend the remainder 
of my leave with them, which I am doing. 

Now, who are they? Lord only knows. I 
have not been able to distinguish their tities 
from their names yet, but finding me interested 
in pictures they thought perhaps I would be 
interested in looking over one of the family 
albums. It was a daughter-in-law of the Vis- 
count Duval who showed me the album. The 
Countess Duval had three sons, the eldest an 
author of some note; the second owns Chateau 



150 DINSMORE ELY 

Du Bois, and the third is the one with whom I 
am staying now. This family consists of a 
married daughter, formerly the Marchioness 
Duval, now Viscountess Richecourt; the son, 
married to the Marchioness Ribol; and the 
daughter, still the unmarried Marchioness 
Duval. 

Devoting a short paragraph to the latter, 
which is her due. She is charming, beautiful, 
of what might be called the flower of French 
gentility, and is twenty-three. She speaks Eng- | 
lish very well, plays the piano and violoncello, 
and is much interested in art. She has not had 
so much time for these, however, since the war 
has centered her real interests in the soldiers 
at the Front. It was she who described 
the spirit of Frenchmen as '' so beautiful." 
Speaking of a mass for their dead, which was 
held by the family some six months ago, the 
smile did not fade, but there was sadness in her 
voice as she said, " More than twenty-five of our 
poor boys had died at that time." That in- 
cluded cousins and second cousins of their fam- 
ily, but she said, ''We must be happy." She 
just came in where we are all writing letters, 
with her hair hanging about her shoulders. 
I didn't notice what she was saying, but I think 



DINSMORE ELY 151 

she was thanking me very much for a little sixty 
cent maiden-hair fern with a little white flower 
in the center which I brought her on the way 
from the barber shop as a New Years present. 
She set it on her desk. It will grow there. 

They are going out to distribute meat to some 
poor people, so I shall go with them, and con- 
tinue this anon. 

This being anon, I have forgotten titles and 
history and nationality in the acquaintance of 

the finest people I have ever met 

There is a climax in one's estimate of the worthi- 
ness of people, and I believe I have reached it. 
Their fortunes and family have been irreparably 
depleted by the war, yet they devote all their 
time and energies to the poor, the wounded, and 
their soldiers on the firing line. They are 
French, yet knowing them has wiped out the 
possibility of superiority of nationality or race. 
They are Catholics, yet knowing them has wiped 
out the possibility of superiority of faith or 
religion. I do not understand their language 
well enough to know them as they are to be 
known, nor my own language well enough to 
give them their due. Their faith, their hope, 
their charity, is superior to any I have ever 
known. 



152 DINSMORE ELY 



They attend mass early and late. They share 
their prosperity among all. They fill their holi- 
days with the writing of letters to those in the 
trenches who are theirs to cheer. I have known 
the home life of American families as I am see- 
ing the life of this French family, and I am con- 
vinced that these people are no less superior in 
the art of living than in the other arts. 

My standards of life and ambitions and ideals 
and philosophy are not so high as I thought 
they were. They fill the bill as far as self-re- 
straint is concerned, but as for using the su- 
perior ability so gained in the benefiting of other 
lives I am almost wholly lacking. I thought 
my character was getting pretty well rounded 
out, and now I find it is still only a bulged seed, 
with the skin cracked by sudden growth. 

Whether the atmosphere of this family is the 
indirect result of the war I rather doubt, but 
if America Is to be subjected to such a renais- 
sance this war Is a blessing. This may all be 
enthusiasm on my part, but enthusiasm Involving 
higher ideals seldom is dangerous. Every so 
often one bumps his head as he passes through 
the less prominent doorways In life, and Is sud- 
denly brought to realize that he has been asleep. 
My last bump Is still on the rise. Since coming 



DINSMORE ELY 153 

to France I have been resting, and now I am 
through. It Is time to set a new pace for my- 
self. It is a foolish thing to write that down, 
but it emphasizes the fact that it's the truth. 

Another short paragraph to this girl. She 
Is the first girl I have ever met who I am sure 
knows more than myself, and whose faith in- 
spires all in me. The Interesting details of the 
daily life of this family would hold your inter- 
est in many such letters as this, but they fall 
Into such insignificance in the light of my ad- 
admiration for their bigger qualities, that I 
cannot recall them. 

For the present, I shall say good night. To- 
morrow I fly. I am coming to take dinner here 
and stay all night day after tomorrow. I have 
not received mail since December lo, save one 
short letter from father. 

Love to you all. 

Your Son. 

January 8, igi8. 
Dear Father: 

Check No. 7498 for 250 francs arrived yes- 
terday. Thank you very much. I had four 
francs left. I am living at the home of the 
Duvals for the remainder of my stay at 



154 DINSMORE ELY 

Cazaux. I'll tell you all about it when I have 
more time. Till then, know that the Prince of 
Ely is guest of honor to the best blood and truest 
people of France. Their daughter reads many 
English books and would like to read some 
American novels. Will you please send to me at 
45 Ave. Montaigne the following books : The 
Virginian, by Owen Wister, Laddie, by Gene 
Stratton Porter, and The Turmoil, by Booth 
Tarkington. These depict American life as she 
would enjoy knowing it. She is giving me 
French books to read. 

Your Son. 
My final shooting record was very good, 
fourteen per cent at a flying target. The reward 
for merit, a two days' permission. 

Villa St. Jean, January g, igi8. 
Dearest Family: 

Here's to say that I am still enjoying your 
Christmas presents and those of our kind 
friends. It is mighty good to eat the nuts and 
"rocks" that make me think of the home pan- 
try. The only thing lacking is a great glass of 
milk. The money, too, came just in time. Not 
all of it came, but I have checks Nos. 7506, 
7504, 7505, 7488, 7499, which will be good 



DINSMORE ELY 155 

insurance against hard times for many a month, 
I hope. All my mail had been sent to my next 
address by the Personnel Department, and was 
returned by special request. The Personnel 
Department will continue to be my address until 
further notice. 

You asked what the Lafayette escadrille is. 
It is the continuation of the small group of 
American flyers who originally went into the 
French service in the early part of the war. Its 
signal service was made the basis of romantic 
interest and used to bind the feeling of friend- 
ship between France and America. I'he interest 
caused other Americans to seek admission in 
such numbers that a new division of the French 
Foreign Legion called the Lafayette Flying 
Corps, and, later, the Franco-American Flying 
Corps was formed. It was for selected Ameri- 
cans. The original Lafayette Flying Corps, a 
group of ten men, continued distinct. It was 
the Franco-American Flying Corps that I 
joined. Many men please to let the public be- 
lieve that they are members of the Lafayette 
Flying Corps, and so profit by its valor. It is 
because of this that it is essential to keep one's 
position clear. 

As to my letter which was so widely pub- 



156 DINSMORE ELY 

lished — I am sorry that my name was attached. 
I find there is a distinct repulsion at seeing my 
name in print in connection with such an expres- 
sion as "quiet valor." The letter described a 
milestone in my life, but in the world of aviation 
and the war at large such an incident is no more 
than a blow-out in an automobile race. To 
people not acquainted with aviation, it would 
be very Interesting, Indeed, but the name would 
not add much to its interest. The editor's com- 
ment was encouraging, but that he should think 
of the book which was recommended to all their 
reporters, Is not so extraordinary; nor does It 
mean that my letter was on a level with it. It 
would be a great pleasure to me if I could turn 
my letter writing to actual advantage, but to 
do so in the first person, with name attached, is 
something I am not ready for. You spoke of 
all good things going into the Post. Did you 
mean the Saturday Evening Post? If it were 
possible to get an article In the Saturday Eve- 
ning Post, I could aspire to that. I know that it 
Is a pretty big thing, but every number has an 
article In It written by a night-shift reporter who 
got out to some aviation school over Sunday. 
What I have In mind for the Post is an article, 
not on aviation, which Is already over-written. 



DINSMORE ELY 157 

but on the intimate side of the French people, 
our allies. 

On this I want your advice and help if it 
proves possible. Everybody agrees that the 
United States waited too long before entering 
the war, but I always felt that It did right in 
waiting until the people were ready. However, 
having waited too long, it cannot take Its full 
part except in that part of the war which re- 
mains. I do not believe that that fulfills its 
duty. As France has been the field of devasta- 
tion it is to France that further aid should be 
given in completing the duty of the country. 
This could best be done in aiding her to recover 
after the war. This has all been thought of 
and acted upon to some extent in the States. 

One method suggested and perhaps carried 
out was that American towns should act as god- 
mothers to French towns ruined in the battle 
front. This method is thoroughly practical if 
rightly carried out, and contains a touch of the 
romantic which would probably appeal to the 
public mind enough to Interest It. It has been 
long since I left the States as far as the changes 
which have taken place are concerned. I sus- 
pect that the attitude has changed from " Help 
France to beat the Germans" to "Help the 



158 DINSMORE ELY 

United States to beat the Germans." The result 
would be that where the godmother movement 
would have received hearty support earlier, it 
might now fail. It is of this I want you to tell 
me, if possible. Would the people, by the 
right method of approach, be willing to adopt 
a French town and subscribe quite liberally to 
its rebuilding, and does the government permit 
such donations? 

The United States is athrob with the scale of 
its task and the enthusiasm of its attack. It pats 
itself on the shoulder that a liberty loan of two 
or three billion dollars should be oversubscribed. 
Though one heard very little about it in street 
conversation in French towns and Paris, the 
French oversubscribed a two billion liberty loan 
after three years and a half of this war. This 
speaks for itself. 

But to return to the godmother movement. I 
have been asked by the family Duval if such 
a thing were possible and if I might be able to 
find the ways and means of doing it. The town 
is one in which their family is interested and 
they wish to take the responsibility of looking 
out for its welfare after the war. I have not 
talked with the people who are directly inter- 
ested and in charge of detailed information con- 



_^ DINSMORE ELY 159 

cerning It. I shall see them in Paris in a few 
days and may withhold this letter till then. 

I am going to write to Dr. Gordon, Mr. 
Davies, and Professor Lawrence to find their 
opinion on the possibility of raising such a god- 
mother fund. Professor Lawrence spoke of 
the possibility of architectural societies sending 
representatives to engineer the building of such 
towns. My letters to these people will be brief, 
written from the position of one speaking for 
friends here who wish to know possibilities. 

Just a glance at the possibilities will show you 
the cause of my interest. I am interested in 
France, and if I could spend a year of my life in 
doing some such service, it would be no more 
than I believe any American owes. I might 
even take charge of the rebuilding of the town. 
It would benefit France, as you can see. It 
would benefit America In making stronger the 
feeling of love between herself and France. It 
would gratify the Duvals, who have been so 
kind to me. As for me. It would give me 
permanent access to the best that France can 
offer; an opportunity of architectural study and 
practice are among other things. Tell me what 
you think of It. 

Your Son. 



160 DINSMORE ELY 

Arcachon^ January zj, igi8. 
Dear Family: 

I'll tell you what the Duvals have done for 
me and let you judge what kind of friends they 
are. First, they invited me to Christmas dinner, 
and having failed to reach me, invited me again 
for New Years. They have insisted that I stay 
with them, and so I have had dinner and after- 
noon tea here every afternoon and stayed all 
night since that time, and have spent my four 
days' leave with them. During that time their 
interest in my pleasure has not relaxed in the 
least, yet there has been no feeling they were 
neglecting their duties for my pleasure. Find- 
ing that I loved music, there has been hardly an 
afternoon that other people of musical talent 
were not invited to tea, the Duvals, them- 
selves, being very musical. Among these people 
have been some of the finest women of France, 
many of them daughters of French nobility of 
the last three centuries. 

On January 3 the aviation school gave itself 
over to a fete day in honor of a delegation of 
the neutral countries of the world. All the guns 
were firing from morning until night, and all the 
aeroplanes were constantly in flight. The dele- 
gation consisted of the principal dignitaries of 



DINSMORE ELY 161 

the countries they represented and were arrayed 
in gorgeous attire. 

Conducted about in automobiles by the com- 
mandant of the school, they beheld with strained 
dignity, the war preparation of France. We 
pilots discussed among ourselves these dukes and 
lords of different skins, whom the French call 
" Neuters." The work finished and pomp dis- 
missed, I went as usual in the officers' special 
truck to Arcachon. The array of automobiles 
before the door warned me of what was coming, 
so I swallowed my surprise successfully when 
I was ushered in among the array of "high- 
heads" to inspect their medals at close range. 
As I passed from room to room all the 
Duvals, each in turn, stepped out from their 
"Neuter" guests with marked cordiality to say 
how glad they were to see me, and where it was 
convenient, introduced me to the others as an 
"American aviator in the French Foreign 
Legion." It always pleased me to note the em- 
barrassment of the duke or prince In question 
when he tried to decide whether or not he should 
shake hands with me. When they seemed anx- 
ious to do so, I permitted It. Then Catherine 
Duval, the daughter, led me to the next pret- 
tiest girl In the room and said I would find 



162 DINSMORE ELY 



her charming. We talked of music and the 
difference between French and American girls. 
Meanwhile, the " Neuters " were trying to make 
their school-French a common meeting ground. 

In the next room, the sister of my partner was 
occupied with a gentleman from Argentina. She 
being a very charming girl, he proceeded to scat- 
ter "bouquets" with glances ardent. "Of 
course," said she, "while you are paying me 
pretty speeches here, your brother may be suing 
the favor of some general's daughter in Berlin." 
The " Neuter" lapsed to more commonplace re- 
marks. If you knew what the French have en- 
dured, you could excuse her frankness. 

Among those present were first consul to the 
king of Spain, the prince of Siam, and others 
of the same hue. They departed, and as I hap- 
pened to be near the door when the migration 
started, most of them thanked me for their 
pleasant time; the rest admitted the honor. 
Then we had a little music feast; the girl with 
whom I had talked has a voice which would be 
ready for Grand Opera in three years. Oh! 
They are all so absolutely charming that I shall 
never be content till you meet them. You may 
begin to plan now on a trip to France after 
the war. 



DINSMORE ELY 163 

They had not told me of their intention to 
entertain this delegation lest perhaps I would 
not have come. How courteous. But they 
didn't know me. 

Their family is numerous. The man in 
charge of the delegation was a cousin. Another 
cousin is on the staff of the school here at 
Cazaux, having been incapacitated by service 
at the Front; he said he would be pleased to do 
anything he could for me at the school. Another 
cousin, an aviator, with eight Boche to his offi- 
cial credit, and twice as many actually, who is 
chief of his escadrille and came down to this 
school to give lectures, has been staying here for 
four days. He is twenty-four, and a charming 
fellow. I asked if he would permit me to apply 
for admission to his escadrille, and he said he 
also would make the request, and that it might 
well be accomplished. It might mean a matter 
of Hfe and death some day to be in the escadrille 
whose chief was personally interested in one. 
Two years ago, this boy's brother was brought 
down in a fighting plane. Two days later the 
father and mother took this boy to Paris and 
enlisted him in aviation to fill his brother's 
place — and he has filled it. Do you get the 
spirit? 



164 DINSMORE ELY 



A captain whom I met here was a civilian at 
the beginning of the war. His son enlisted in 
the infantry, and he enlisted, too, that he might 
be by his son's side. His son died in his arms. 
Now the father is a captain, but his lips turn 
white when he speaks of the Germans. Do you 
get the spirit? 

The First Dragoons are a company of cavalry 
whose ranks have been filled by certain families 
for generations. One of them was killed. The 
boy's father, a captain of infantry, resigned his 
position and enlisted as a private to fill that 
place in the First Dragoons which had been occu- 
pied by his son, his father, and his grandfather 
before him. Do you get the spirit? 

Do you see why I say that the United States 
can still bare its head to France without loss of 
self-respect? Do you see why, though Ameri- 
can, I feel it something of an honor to remain 
for a time in the French Army ? 

Just to give you an idea of what I have in 
mind, I'll tell you the possibilities, but bear in 
mind that is all conjecture, guided more by my 
own reason than by knowledge of what is taking 
place. At first, all men entering United States 
aviation were made first lieutenants. Some of 
these, still unable to fly, are in this country help- 



DINSMORE ELY 165 



ing to build barracks. Others were taken from 
the French Army as first lieutenants and are 
already making use of their experience at the 
Front. It is now the policy of the United States 
to give first lieutenancies to aviators only when 
they get t'o service at the Front ; they are second 
lieutenants until then. In other words, they 
started out by throwing first lieutenancies about 
before they could judge the men that were get- 
ting them, and they are having to back down 
by making men of superior training inferior 
in office to men who have received commissions 
without the training. This is obviously unfair, 
and although I can see why it is necessary, I 
do not propose to suffer by their mistake and 
permit myself to be cramped in service by ac- 
cepting too low a position in the U. S. Army. 
We signed papers applying for the offer of 
first lieutenancy about four months ago, and 
no steps have been taken until very lately. Now 
some of the men have been released from the 
French Army, but are not yet taken into the 
U. S. I may be among them and will find out 
when I go to Paris. I think, however, that an 
intentional failure to sign a duplicate application 
for release from the French Army may have pre- 
vented my release. In that case, I can go into a 



166 DINSMORE ELY 

French escadrllle and get a couple of months' 
service and experience with the French before 
they can accomplish anything with their red 
tape. By that time, U. S. aviation will be turn- 
ing out men and planes in preparation for the 
summer or fall drive, and will need men with 
practical experience as heads of the escadrille 
which they will want to put on the Front. As 
there are so many first lieutenant aviators, it 
will be necessary to make the chiefs of their 
escadrilles captains. By that time I will have 
had experience, a clear record, and a good 
recommendation from the French. It seems 
reasonable to me that I will be in a position then 
to ask for a captaincy, and it is this course of 
action that I propose to follow. In staying with 
the French I must be self-supporting. If I do 
not play my cards correctly I might be refused 
a commission in the U. S. Army, but that would 
be rather unlikely. It really depends greatly 
upon that signature of release from the French. 
I feel, however, that I will eventually get what 
I deserve — whatever that may be — and I 
await results. Meanwhile, I am serving the 
Cause as much as an aviator can. 

I have before me another letter to you as 
long as this, which I will not mail until I talk 



DINSMORE ELY 167 



with Countess Duval in Paris, whom the letter 
concerns. 

My love is with you all. Be content that you 
are in America. Coal may be high — but it is 
better than no coal. People in France don't eat 
butter. Lump sugar is jewelry. 

Ever your son, 

DiNSMORE. 

Villa St. Jean, January i^, igi8. 
Dear Family : 

I forgot to say that I have five days' permis- 
sion as a reward for raising the school record 
in aero marksmanship from twenty-two per cent 
to twenty-seven and a half per cent. It is the 
first thing which is actual cause for believing that 
I may be a successful fighting pilot. Many men 
can fly and many can shoot very well, but the 
combination of the two is the rare thing which 
much increases one's opportunity for service and 
chance for survival in the struggle for existence 
over the lines. 

The test is made on a sleeve the size of the 
body of the smallest aeroplane. This sleeve is 
dragged behind another aeroplane traveling at 
sixty or seventy miles per hour. The plane I 
drove had a speed of lOO to 120 miles per hour, 



168 DINSMORE ELY 

and the machine gun is fired from it, and me- 
chanically arranged to shoot through the pro- 
peller. You approach the sleeve from various 
directions, making snap judgments as to target 
and shooter's deflection, which I explained in 
another letter, and then fire six or eight shots 
at a time at a range varying from 600 to 75 feet. 
The centering of the bullets is important. You 
have a hundred shots. 

Your son, 

DiNSMORE. 

Plessis Belleville J France, January IJ, igiS. 
Dear Bob : 

Seven of us fellows met in Paris after a five 
days' permission and took the train for this 
place. We arrived at about four in the after- 
noon, and it was raining about one hundred per 
cent. We piled our luggage into the truck and 
climbed up on top of it. It was some ride ! By 
the time darkness fell we had become skilful 
enough to keep our balance on top of the lug- 
gage. It was very dangerous to ride that way. 
I understand why they give aviators the balance 
test. We pulled in here in the dark and waded 
half a mile through mud three inches deep, and 
mounted to the second story of a one-story build- 



DINSMORE ELY 169 



ing where they served us a three-course dinner 
in one course. We used the same half mile of 
mud to get back to the barracks. The question 
came up as to how we were to get our baggage 
into the barracks from the trucks, so we carried 
it in. Meanwhile, the rain kept up its standard. 
I forgot to mention we had been dressed in our 
best clothes. My hat was covered with mud 
because it had fallen off; the rain washed the 
cap, and that's how the mud got into my eyes. 
We were to sleep on boards. I had my bed 
made when a Frenchman came along and offered 
me a mattress, as he had two. I wanted to be 
generous and give it to one of the other fel- 
lows, but I thought it would hurt the French- 
man's feelings, so I used it myself to sleep on. 
But yesterday I put the mattress under the 
boards; I do not think he will notice the change 
and it is more comfortable. The saving grace 
of it all is that we have a great bunch of fellows. 
We have what we. French call esprit de corps, 
meaning in your Enghsh language "good 
spirit." We sing when rained upon and laugh 
when we are sad. They are all pretty straight 
fellows and do not let people stumble over their 
crooks. It is only when others thrust their faults 
upon you that you object to their faults. One 



170 DINSMORE ELY 

might write a nice discourse on the moral rights 
of a person to pollute the free atmosphere with 
the expression of poisonous thoughts. But these 
fellows do not do that. 

In passing through Paris, I found that I can 
remain in the French Army at my option, which 
I choose to do for some months. I am slowly 
using up the great stock of clothing I brought 
over with me. The hip boots are best just now. 
I was dressed in my brown sweater, my Ameri- 
can campaign hat, black boots, and rain coat. 
I had just finished signing up, when I heard the 
door open and smelled some one come in. It 
was a mixture of Port and Burgundy wines that 
I smelled. Having heard that the captain had a 
taste for wine, I wheeled around and came to 
a salute. He looked me over, up and down, and 
asked me wlfo I was. I said I was an American 
in the Legion Etranger, and that I had pur- 
chased my clothes at Marshall Field & Com- 
pany's on Washington Street, in Chicago. I 
knew he didn't like my camouflage, because he 
turned to an assistant and said, " Dress this man 
in a complete French uniform." The man took 
me in another room and tried on the clothes. I 
let him. When he started to hand me a blue 
flag, I looked at him questioningly. So he sat 



DINSMORE ELY 171 



down on the floor and folded the flag length- 
wise, running it over his knee to make the creases 
stay. When he finished, it was a two-inch band 
which he wound about my neck, gave a cross 
hitch, and pinned it with a pin he bit out of the 
lower corner of his coat. He was very serious 
all the time. He gave me a cap of the type dis- 
carded by the Miners' Union in 1883. Except 
when I see the captain coming, I wear it under 
my coat. My new uniform is sky blue in rainy 
weather. In my next letter I'll tell you how it 
looks when the sun shines. When the weather 
improves, we may fly. 

We are in the war zone now, about thirty- 
two miles from the Front. We can see the flare 
of artillery in the sky and hear the guns on a 
clear night. Today we took a walk to a village 
seven miles away, and crossed a road where 
many trains of trucks were passing with supplies. 
That begins to sound exciting, doesn't it? In 
each village the houses are marked with the 
numbers of men and horses they can accommo- 
date. I should be excited, but I'm not, because 
I'll not see the Front for another month. 
Your ever lovin' brother. 

Dins. 



172 DINSMORE ELY 

January ig, igi8. 
Dear Family : 

Today I received twenty-five letters dating 
from November i to December i 

A little tin box containing sugar, candy, and 
candied pineapple came day before yesterday. 
I ate it nearly all by myself, though I share all 
other things. The big can of candy sent by Mr. 
Buchanan has set open to the barracks for three 
days and has been a great pleasure to all of us. 
A knitted sweater from a Boston girl whose 
father was a " Tech " man, came, and I have all 
the warm things I could wish for and all the 
money I can use for three or four months. I 
may go to Nice on my next permission, with 
some of my Christmas money. Father's check 
No. 7499 for 250 francs came. Thank you for 
all these things. Those five pictures of the cabin 
touch a chord of their own. 

We are near the Front now — twenty-five 
miles. Last night we saw the great searchlights 
playing and the star shells floating at the end 
of their fiery arcs. But the country here is fer- 
tile and well cared for, and the only signs of 
war are a few scattered graves of unknown vic- 
tims of the battle of the Marne. We take long 
walks when not at work- — work being the busi- 



DINSMORE ELY 173 

ness of waiting for a chance to fly. There were 
seven machines broken yesterday and no one 
hurt; expenses for the day must have been thirty 
thousand dollars. It is a rich man's game. I 
had four rides. The machines are better here. 
Today I got half a cup of water, so I washed 
my teeth. Next Sunday I shall shave. I cleaned 
my boots from a puddle in the road. Water is 
scarcer than wine, but I am still teetotaling. I 
am tired tonight. 

Good night. 

Your Son. 

January 20, igi8. 
Ma chere Famille : 

Yesterday I made an appointment with the 
town barber to have him cut my hair at 5:15 
P.M. I was quite prompt but found him un- 
prepared. He lived off a little court yard which 
was connected by a close to the main alley of 
the borough. In crossing the threshold of the 
kitchen I entered the tonsorial parlor. His 
work bench was next to the family range, and a 
moth-eaten mirror reflected pox-marked people. 
The madame set the chair in the middle of the 
room and brought the scissors and comb from 
the other room. The twelve-year old offspring 



174 DINSMORE ELY 

was arrested In the midst of rolling a cigarette 
when his father commanded him to hold the 
lamp. So the little fellow stood transfixed with 
the half-rolled cigarette in one hand and the 
family lamp in the other Every time the 
father hesitated, the boy tried to set down the 
lamp and finish the cigarette, but the father 
would jump to it again and keep the boy from 
making any headway. Believe it, the boy kept 
his father hard at it. Sometimes the lamp nearly 
lost its balance, but the cigarette kept level, so 
I took to watching the cigarette. He never 
would have succeeded in rolling it if the father 
hadn't had to go to the shed to get the clippers. 
As it was, he returned before the boy could light 
up. Meanwhile, the old dame, who needed a 
shave more than Tdid a hair cut, was preparing 
to feed the animals. Once when she was lean- 
ing over me to get a dipper of water out of the 
pail under the barber's table, she lost her bal- 
ance and fell into my lap. But she didn't spill 
the water and the old man didn't miss a clip. 
She would stop her work from time to time and 
come over with folded arms to see how the hair 
was coming off. The professor didn't cut any 
off the top. When I suggested that he cut just 
a little I think it hurt his feelings, because he 



DINSMORE ELY 175 

changed my hair from a " Broadway-comb- 
back" to a " Sing-Sing-sanitary " In about ten 
strokes. But it was the quickest hair cut I ever 
had and he didn't tell me I needed a shampoo, 
so I gave him eight cents instead of six. 

Your Son. 

January j/, igi8. 
Dear Bob : 

It has been wonderfully clear for the past 
three nights, and in the light of a big London 
raid, the French have been expecting a raid on 
Paris. Last night I went to bed early. Thump 
' — thump — boom — boom — boom; I rolled 
over to sleep on the other side. Boom — boom 
— bang — bang — bang; my ears felt funny and 
I turned over on my back and looked at the ceil- 
ing. Bang — crash — crash — thunder; some- 
thing must be wrong. I sat up in bed, to see fig- 
ures passing the moonlit windows and voices 
whispering between the continuous detonations 
which jarred the night air. Someone lit a light, 
and a hiss went up from the barracks. One 
heard the words "Boche" and "bomb" oft re- 
peated. I yawned and pulled on the other sock. 
We could hear the hum of motors as we crowded 
out of the barracks doors, scantily clad. 



176 DINSMORE ELY 

The air was crisp and clear. The moon was 
just rising. It was twelve-thirty, and there were 
stars in millions. Now the crashes came just 
over our heads. First, over to the east, just 
behind a clump of trees not half a mile away we 
would see a couple of sudden flares; then came 
the crash of the report, followed by the receding 
war song of the shells as they went up through 
the darkness ; then would come the bright glare 
which would blind the sight and scare away the 
stars, leaving the sky black; and finally, as we 
would blink and begin to see the stars venturing 
forth again, the great crash of the shell on high 
would reach us. Then we would discuss how 
close they may have come to the place and 
whether the falling shells would come near us. 
But the hum of the planes came and went in the 
direction of Paris without our seeing them, for 
only the explosion of shells marked their course 
across the sky. We are thirty miles from Paris. 
For fifteen minutes we watched the explosions of 
the anti-aircraft shells. Then suddenly there 
were low grumblings, booming with increasing 
rapidity of succession. The groups of lights 
sigaaling in the Paris Guard formation flashed 
off and on, changing location with great rapid- 
ity. Then came the returning hum of the 



DINSMORE ELY 177 

motors, the line of shells flaring in the sky, a 
series of red-rocket signals, and the raid was 
over. 

Today I had my first rides in the Spad. It is 
the most wonderful machine going. It has an 
eight-cylinder motor, and is built like a bulldog. 
It is the finest thing in aeroplanes, and I cer- 
tainly hope I get one at the Front. 

The first copy of Life came yesterday. Say, 
you couldn't have given me a present that would 
cause us all more pleasure. I read every word 
of it, and now it is going the rounds. Thank 
you for it ever so much. 

Well, we have an appel (roll-call) and I must 
stop. Love to you all. Write me when you can. 
Your ever lovin' brother. 

Dins. 

February lo, igi8. 
Dear Family: 

The first week here was restless, the second 
nerve-wrecking, and now I have relaxed and 
settled down to pleasant, contented routine 
which varies according to the weather. When 
it rains or is foggy, I come over alone to a little 
wine shop in a near-by village; its name is 
Tagny-le-Sec. Here I have chocolate, toast. 



178 DINSMORE ELY 

and butter for petite dejeuner (little breakfast) . 
Then I write and read and draw according to my 
whim till lunch time. If the sky has not cleared 
in the afternoon, I go for a walk and up to the 
barracks where I lie down and read until sup- 
per. After supper a bunch of us go to a wine 
shop and talk until roll-call at nine o^clock. 

When the weather is favorable, we stand out 
on the field eight hours a day waiting our turn 
to fly; that is a strain. Usually we fly a half 
hour a day, but at times, one may go three or 
four days without a flight, but no matter how 
long you wait, a single half hour in the air satis- 
fies all desire for action, excitement, and exer- 
cise for the time being. That is one of the 
strange things about aviation. Though a man 
is strapped in his seat and moves no part of his 
body more than three inches, an hour in the air 
will keep him in excellent physical condition, 
provided he is nervously fitted for the work. 
And the mind and eyes are equally fatigued. 
Absolute concentration is necessary. The more 
I see of the game, the more I believe that nine- 
tenths of the accidents and deaths are due to 
the inability of the pilot to concentrate or to 
recognize that concentration is necessary. 

We are using the best and fastest fighting 



DINSMORE ELY 179 

plane now, the Spad, Guynemer's plane. In start- 
ing, one must immediately throw every nerve into 
stress to keep the machine in its given course; 
not doing so means a quick turn, a crushing of 
the running gear, and a broken wing. This is 
an inexcusable accident with a trained pilot; yet 
it happens about once a day because someone 
is only three-fourths on the job. In gaining 
speed, the machine must be brought to its line of 
flight, the danger here being to tip it too far 
forward and break the propeller on the ground. 
This is easy to prevent, and so is inexcusable, 
yet it happens once a week because someone for- 
gets himself. There is danger in leaving the 
ground too soon, and danger in mounting too 
quickly. 

About one pilot a month is killed at the Front 
by attempting to mount too quickly while close 
to the ground. At a height of twenty feet, one 
must be all alert for sharp heat waves that are 
liable to get under one wing. When one comes 
to make the first turn, there is danger of too 
great a bank allowing the head-on wind to get 
under the high wing and slide you down, yet 
this almost never happens because by the time 
the pilot is up there he is all present. All this 
time he must have been alert for arriving and 



180 DINSMORE ELY 

departing machines which are dangerous, not 
only because of collision, but because of the 
turbulent current of air they leave in their wake. 
One machine passing through the wake of an- 
other acts like a wild goose frightened by a 
passing bullet. 

As the pilot gains height and distance from 
the field he may begin to relax and get his 
geographical bearings, and it is well for him to 
do so, for the strain he was under in those first 
thirty seconds would exhaust him in fifteen min- 
utes. He can then glance over his gauges and 
listen to his motor. When he gets to a thousand 
or fifteen hundred meters he can lean back, 
throttle down his motor, and count the clouds 
with a freedom from worry which the motorist 
never knows. At the Front of course it is dif- 
ferent. There the pilot must make a complete 
study of the whole horizon every thirty seconds 
to be sure of his safety from enemy planes, 
meanwhile changing his course and height con- 
tinually to evade the anti-aircraft shells. Most 
pilots are brought down at the Front by sur- 
prise, which again is due to lack of concen- 
tration. 

Having had a pleasant flight and enjoyed the 
beauties of nature, it is time to drift down to the 



DINSMORE ELY 181 

home roost. You locate the hangars, cut your 
engine down low, and strike your peaking angle. 
The good old machine purrs like a kitten, the 
clouds whisk by, you breathe a sigh of relief and 
wonder If dinner will be any better than lunch. 
Well, anyway, It was a good ride. And just 
there is where '' dat dar grimacin' skeleton pus- 
son begins to rattle dem bones." Maybe you 
have let the plane flatten out Its peaking angle 
a little and lost your velocity. Maybe the 
engine was turning over a good speed because of 
your descent when you last noticed It. Maybe 
the evening air has quieted down somewhat and 
It was safe enough to drift along and settle as 
long as you had altitude. But now that you are 
fifty meters from the ground and the piece two 
or three hundred meters away and you have 
come to horizontal flight a little and your plane 
Is slowly losing Its speed of descent and your 
engine Is still throttled down too slow to even 
roll you along the ground — and the sunset Is 
beautiful — like a hole In the sidewalk, your 
plane gives a sudden lurch, you jump all over 
and find your controls '* mushy " — you slip side- 
ways, the ground coming at you — you jerk open 
the throttle — the motor, cold from the descent, 
chokes a bit — you can see the grass blades red 



182 DINSMORE ELY 

in the sun — then she catches! God bless that 
motor — she booms! There is a moment of 
clenched teeth while the plane wavers in its 
slide, and then she bounds forward, skimming 
the ground, gaining speed just in time to clear 
those deadly telegraph wires. With eyes set 
on the horizon, you let her sink, and every nerve 
tense, she pulls her tail down, touches the ground 
in a three-point landing like a gull on the wave. 
She rolls up and stops; you take a breath and 
feel the color come back to your cheeks. Slowly 
you raise your glasses to your forehead and 
undo your belt. Slowly you raise yourself out 
and drop to the ground. Pensively you wander 
back into the group of aviators who watched 
you land. 

"Some landing like a duck," says an Ameri- 
can. 

'' Tres bien/' says the monitor. But you go 
over and lean against a tent pole silent, and 
without a smile. You know what your comrades 
do not know — that " a fool there was," and he 
lives by a fool's luck. And you swear an oath 
to yourself and the dear old world that you'll 
never be caught like that again. 

Most everyone has the experience sooner or 
later and almost everyone hves to be a wiser 



DINSMORE ELY 183 

and more prudent rnan, not excluding 

Your son, 

Dins. 

February zj, igi8. 
Dear Family : 

We are right here among the pines. Great 
forests of splendid Norways stretch away over 
the rolling sandy country, broken only by the 
clearing around some old manor chateau with 
its radiating vistas and its towers standing white 
amidst the green. Would you think that France 
with its dense population and old culture would 
be covered with great forests, almost primeval 
in the abandon of their growth? Throw in a 
few lakes and it would be Wisconsin. 

Yesterday I cut the noonday roll-call and 
succeeded in losing myself as an excuse. As I 
swung along the road, I could feel the spirit 
of the blazed trail humming in the pine boughs; 
and my breath came deep. Here was a clear- 
ing with the logs fallen and the smallest branches 
cut and tied in neat sheaves — there, off to the 
right, was a hill which mounted above the tree 
tops. I climbed to the top and saw the stretch 
of woods on all sides with here and there a rock- 
strewn, barren stretch of sand. Going down the 



184 DINSMORE ELY 

other side, a pheasant clapped up from under 
foot and made me start. As my eyes glanced 
along the trail ahead of my wandering feet, I 
saw many deer tracks. They say that since the 
war, wolves are not infrequent ; and have we not 
heard of wolves in the streets of Paris not many 
decades ago? Now and then a rabbit bobbed 
out of sight. It soothed me and yet made me 
homesick. Out there in the open woods with 
the gentle spirit of the mighty pines, I could 
not help despairing at the question, "What 
good is war?" 

Today we had an accident. A machine had 
mounted to fifty meters when it stopped climbing 
and started to lose speed. It turned to come 
back to the piece, but slipped sideways and fell 
in ^^ vrille/' and crashed headlong to the ground. 
The tail broke backward and the motor gave a 
final groan, as in a death struggle. Men covered 
their eyes. It was a quarter of a mile away. All 
started to run, and I was first there. The pilot, 
a little Frenchman with whom I had been ex- 
changing French, had crawled out on top of the 
wreck. He sat shut in by the wreckage. There 
was a whimper on his face. I climbed up on the 
wreckage and held him in my arms. He called 
me bv name and then managed to tell me that 



DINSMORE ELY 185 

his arm was broken. Well, you can imagine 
how relieved I was. I handed him out to the 
others who had arrived by this time. The doc- 
tor came up and cut the clothes away from his 
arm. There was no bruise nor blood, and as 
he began to regain his color, we tried to divert 
his mind. About the first thing he asked for 
was a piece of the propeller for a souvenir. 
Well, we put him on a stretcher and into the 
captain's car and went to the hospital in a little 
town, Senlis, some two miles away. He seemed 
to prefer me to all his French friends. The 
hospital was a nice old Catholic institution, with 
old Sisters and young Red Cross nurses. We 
left him contented and resigned to his lot of 
another two or three months before reaching 
the Front. 

The village in which we found the hospital 
has been heavily shelled in the early days of the 
war. Every third or fourth house was a monu- 
mental ruin to the price of war, but by some 
happy chance the two beautiful cathedrals of 
the town had been spared, yet the ruins seemed 
very old and the vines which formerly climbed 
the walls now fell about the broken stones and 
trailed through the blind windows, giving the 
whole an aged aspect ; and between these ruins 



186 DINSMORE ELY 



were the untouched abodes of unconscious in- 
habitants. 

Truly your 

Son. 

Dear Family : 

A letter clipping describes that part of France 
which is shrouded in the historic pages of 
knights and kings ; that part which has pleased 
me so much when written by another, makes me 
think of the poorer classes who have lived and 
died in the environment of their birthplaces 
without ambition, that those knights and kings 
might carve their deeds of blood on shields of 
gold. 

In this great war, these poorer classes, peas- 
ants still, are the poilus who keep the trench mud 
from driving them mad by that pint of the red 
French wine, and they sit about me now in a 
little old wine shop whose many-colored bottles, 
oft refilled, are as numerous in shapes and styles 
as the decades they have served. The walls 
are spotted and stained, and the ceilings smoked, 
but the delicate moldings in the stone tell of 
a day when this was the thriving hostelry of the 
village. Now the poorly dressed, worn-out 
veterans of the Great War bend over the scarred 



DINSMORE ELY 187 

tables and confer or wrangle as to how their 
work, so hard begun, will end. 

DiNSMORE. 

February i8, igi8. 
Dear Family : 

I am told that the American captain at this 
school is looking for me to offer me a second 
lieutenancy in the U. S. Army. I must decide 
immediately, and I am tempted to toss a coin. 

Well, this is the result: I signed for the re- 
lease from the army Frangais. I was refused a 
pei'mission to Paris and took it anyway to find 
out from the American authorities what would 
become of me. My trip to Paris was unsuc- 
cessful. I returned to camp late at night, and 
when I awoke in the morning I was told that 
the permission had been granted after all and 
that I had been ordered to the Front at eleven 
o'clock that day in Escadrille S 102, Sector 
Postal 160, located near Toul. I stopped over 
at Paris a day and a half and landed here day 
before yesterday. So now, God be praised, I am 
at the Front. It has taken eight months to come 
to it, but I guess it will be worth it. 

Your Son. 



188 DINSMORE ELY 

Near Toid, France, February 26, igi8. 
Dear Father: 

Plessis Belleville was a great strain. I had to 
fight the curse of idleness and it is a losing fight, 
as with a man who is muscle bound who tires 
himself out. Reading, studying French, draw- 
ing and walking helped, but they were a failure 
through lack of inspiration. No Americans had 
been sent to the Front and there was a rumor 
that we were to be held there till the United 
States took us over. Then came the offer of our 
commissions as second lieutenants, and so in- 
active had our minds become that it upset us to 
decide. I asked for my release from the French 
Army although it is not what I wished to do; 
yet it seemed best. It means that I could hardly 
expect to go to the Front in French service and 
might have to wait months for action in United 
States service. I was in despair. 

The next morning I asked for a permission of 
twenty-four hours in Paris. It was refused. 
I took the eleven o'clock train the next morning 
with an officer. I myself was mistaken for an 
officer. He was good company. We went and 
had a Turkish bath. That night I went to the 
opera. In the morning my marraine's grand- 
children came up to see me. I held them in my 



DINSMORE ELY 189 

arms. Children seem to love me. I think chil- 
dren's love protects people from wrong and 
trouble. 

That day I found that I could not learn any- 
thing from the U. S. Army, so I went to the 
opera again in the afternoon, but it was poor. 
Then I walked in the crowds and laughed at 
all who would laugh with me. After a good 
dinner, I rode back to Plessis with a pretty girl 
who was good company. That night sleep came 
easily and was sound. 

The hoodoo was broken. 

The next morning when I awoke, they told 
me I was to leave for the Front at eleven o'clock. 
I was assigned to the French Escadrille S 102, 
Sector Postal 160, near Toul. Well, I was busy 
packing and getting papers signed and saying 
good-bye to everyone. So now I was just where 
I wished to be. 

It is the custom to take two days in Paris 
without permission on your way to the Front. 
My marra'ine was surprised to see me back so 
soon. I spent the day shopping and then we 
went to see Gaby Deslys last night. We sat 
with three American soldiers who had asked us 
to get their tickets for them. The show was 
full of pep and American songs, besides having 



190 DINSMORE ELY 

some really wonderful dancing. Between acts 
there was a regular New York "jazz" band 
playing in the foyer. It was a jolly way to say 
good-bye to Paris. 

My marraine had received your letter telling 
of wiring me money. As I have received no mail 
whatever for more than three weeks I knew 
nothing of it. I deposited the money in the 
Guaranty Trust Company of New York, i and 3 
Boul. des Italiens, Paris. I have a trunk at the 
Cecilia Hotel, 12 Ave. Mac-Mahon, Paris. 
With me I have two duffelbags and a suitcase. 
At the "Tech" Club, University Union, 8 Rue 
Richelieu, Paris, are some films and key to my 
trunk. There are some post cards and perhaps 
a few odds and ends at my marraine^ s. Thanks 
very much for the money ; I hope I shall not have 
to use it. 

Well, I went down to the station, and just 
naturally took the train for the Front as if I 
were going to Milwaukee (if such a city does 
exist anymore). There were three American 
flyers still in the French Army on the train. 
Wallman, Hitchcock, and another ; the first two 
have been doing exceptional work lately. They 
explained to me how to kill German flyers, and 
I am quits anxious to try it now. We passed 



DINSMORE ELY 191 

through some towns which had been shelled, but 
they didn't look so terribly bad. Arriving at 
Toul I descended and informed the captain by 
telephone that I had arrived. An automobile 
was there in twenty minutes to take me out. 

So I am just where I have been working for 
eight months to get, namely, in a French esca- 
drille, at the Front; flying the best French mono- 
planes, fighting plane, and with a commission 
(only a second lieutenant) in the American 
Army waiting for me. All I wish for now is to 
be completely forgotten by both French and 
American authorities until I give them particu- 
lar reason to remember me ; and this may very 
easily happen (the forgetting part). 

And now I am living in a nice little room, 
which with the room adjacent, is shared by four 
Frenchmen; one of them is an architect of the 
Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In the morning choco- 
late and toast is served to us in bed, as is the 
French custom. We rise at eleven and have the 
day to do as we wish, provided it is not good 
flying weather. Breakfast is served at twelve 
and supper at seven. 

The first day was rainy, but the second day 
was beautiful, and the captain, who is a corker, 
gave me a ride in one of the best machines. It 



192 DINSMORE ELY 

was only for forty minutes to look about the 
country, and of course I did not go near the 
lines, but I was very lucky to get a ride at all. 
It will be some time before I have a machine 
of my own and can work regularly, but that is 
what I look forward to. Yesterday two Boche 
planes came over, and the anti-aircraft guns 
blazed away at them, but all the good it did was 
to reassure me in the fear of their guns; when 
they hit it is by accident. 

Last night I heard booming and stepped out 
of the back door. The moon was full and the 
sky clear. But the whole sky in front of the 
moon was mackerel flecked with the puffs of 
anti-aircraft shells. This was literally true, the 
sky was speckled as thickly as with stars. A 
minute after I was out a plane passed before the 
moon, and for thirty seconds I could see the 
light reflected on its wing. But the number of 
shots they fired at it appalled me. You could 
see the little burst of flame which left its puff 
of smoke. They went off at the rate of seven a 
second, and they kept it up steadily for twenty 
minutes. Get out your pencil. The air was still 
and the smoke remained; probably the smoke 
from the first shell could be seen to the last 
(8,400 puffs in twenty minutes and every puff 



DINSMORE ELY 193 

worth $100 — $840,000 without getting the ef- 
fect). As a matter of fact, I imagine it was 
more for the moral effect upon the populace 
of the town being bombarded than anything. 
All night the sullen boom of the cannon can be 
heard, one boom a second, every other minute. 
It sounds like a heavy person walking on the 
floor above. We are twenty miles from the 
Front and we can get there in thirteen min- 
utes. 

Well, I shall probably have some interesting 
things to write these days, though it is possible 
that it will be deader here than anywhere else; 
that is sometimes the case. 

Today it was cloudy and I went down to the 
village and made a couple of sketches of the ca- 
thedral which is very fine indeed. There is 
months of study in it alone. 

Good night all ; my love to everyone. 

Your son, 

DiNSMORE. 

Escadrille S 102, S. P. 160, March 5, igi8. 
Dear Family: 

It will soon be boresome if I trouble you to 
read of all my narrow escapes. As a matter of 
fact aviation is so full of them that they become 



194 DINSMORE ELY 

almost commonplace. What happened this 
time was only an incident of the training for 
real encounters. There is a little lake near here, 
and in it is a German aeroplane as a target. 
We go over and dive at that target and shoot. 
It is the second good flying day we have had. 
The captain told me to go over and shoot. On 
my first drive at the target I shot two handfuls 
of bullets. I had been peaking 200 meters with 
full motor. I pulled the machine up too quickly 
and there was a rip, a crash, and the machine 
shot into a vertical bank upward. I swung into 
ligne de vol by crossing controls. A glance at 
my wing showed the end of the lower right wing 
torn away. The machine was laboring but I 
still could guide it, so I returned to the school 
and landed without mishap. It was one more 
miracle of a charmed life that I returned. They 
all came out to congratulate me. Well, sir, the 
whole front edge of my lower right wing was 
broken away and bent down. The end of the 
wing was gone and shreds of braces and cloth 
dangled along. I really cannot understand why 
a machine has a lower right wing when you can 
come home without it. It was caused by too 
brutal handling at a formidable speed. I had 
been led to understand that a Spad could peak 



DINSMORE ELY 195 

500 meters with full motor and redress quite 
strongly. I had only peaked 175 with three- 
quarters motor, which I learned was far too 
much. I begin to think I am a fool, for reason 
tells me anyone but a fool would have been 
afraid. But, honestly, there was no more fear 
than with a blow-out on a tire. Yet all the way 
home I knew that it would be probable death 
if anything more went wrong. I came home 
because I knew the landing ground and it was 
only five minutes' flight. 

Dins. 

March 12, igi8. 
Dear Family : 

In the first place, we are all sad because our 
captain leaves us today. He is a wonderful 
man and everyone loves him immediately and 
always. I have only been here three weeks and 
yet I wanted to weep. As for him, the tears 
ran down his cheeks when he said an revoir, mes 
amis (good-bye, my friends). Another takes 
his place. 

Last night gave a pleasant diversion. It 
started with a visit to our squadron of a group 
of aeroplane spotters for the United States bal- 
loon service. At their head was the first lieu- 



196 DINSMORE ELY 

tenant by the name of Grant, from Ohio. He 
fell into conversation and it developed that he 
was a very good friend of " Stuff" Spencer's at 
Yale. We proved interested in each other's 
work and he invited me to come over to have 
dinner at his camp, located some twelve kilo- 
meters from here. I said I'd be glad to some 
time. He left soon after. 

I went over and shot a few rounds at the tar- 
get, this time without mishap. At about five 
the craving to walk was upon me, so I took the 
road leading to the balloon camp, hardly ex- 
pecting to reach it. With the help of passing 
trucks I came to the camp, and passed through 
a town swarming with Americans. Along the 
roads were blocks of American trucks and ambu- 
lances, waiting for darkness to hide their move- 
ments. Many mistook me for a French officer 
and saluted. Those who answered my questions 
of inquiry stood at attention and replied with 
*' sir." I wanted to shake hands with them all 
for they acted as if they had been at it for years. 
When I came to the officers' quarters I was in- 
troduced to them as into a college fraternity. 
I was proud rather than angered at having to 
salute them. They were gentlemen. Now I 
know why college men will make the best offi- 



DINSMORE ELY 197 

cers. They had a victrola, good food, good 
esprit de corps. I stayed all night and came back 
this morning. Well, I want to be a member of 
the American organization. With all its young- 
ness and inexperience, it is good. God give it 
speed. I shall go over there again. 

This showed me another thing: it is quite 
simple for me to go to points of interest within 
a radius of fifteen miles from here and return 
by morning, this giving me an opportunity for 
seeing other branches of the service. I am 
reading up on ballooning, aerial photography, 
and map work, artillery reglage and reconnais- 
sance, and after that I shall study U. S. Army 
regulations and also wireless. I may have to 
change at any time to the United States forces, 
in which case I wish to be in a position to com- 
pete with the men I shall find in it. 

It seems to me in my last letter I told you of 
an accident while shooting and said they were 
common. Well, since then I have had a real 
accident, so miraculous in its outcome than I am 
superstitious as a result. You have read of ban- 
dits whose bodies could not be marred by bul- 
lets. The gods must be saving me for some- 
thing. Father has always feared a speed greater 
than twenty-five miles an hour in an automobile. 



198 DINSMORE ELY 

One has the impression that to hit anything at 
that speed is very apt to kill one. Also, you 
know the marked increase in speed between 
twenty-five and thirty-five miles per hour. Say 
you have gone fifty miles an hour. Now imagine 
yourself going twice that fast along a precipice 
road. Suddenly the machine comes to the edge 
of the cliff, and plunges out into space, at a hun- 
dred miles an hour, and down three hundred 
feet into a pine forest below. Picture what you 
would find if you went down and looked into the 
remains of such an accident. Well, the equiva- 
lent happened to me. As soon as I hit I cut the 
spark and turned the cock which relieves pres- 
sure from the gas tank, to prevent fire ; released 
the belt which held me in my seat; reached up 
and pulled myself out of the wreckage by the 
limb of a tree which had fallen over my head; 
and made my way through the underbrush with- 
out turning to look at the machine. As I stepped 
out upon a road half a mile away, a Red Cross 
Ford came along and took me to a near-by vil- 
lage. There I ate a heavy meal while talking to 
the madame's daughter, and then telephoned 
for them to come and get me. When they ar- 
rived we were all singing and playing at the 
piano. 



DINSMORE ELY 199 

It was my first flight over the lines. I had 
been flying alone up and down our sector for 
half an hour. I had seen seven Boche planes a 
few miles off, but they had immediately disap- 
peared in the clouds. From the first my motor 
had been running cold. I had attained the 
height of 4,700 meters. When I started to 
come down I found it impossible to descend and 
yet keep the motor warm enough to run. Clouds 
had gathered below. I tried to wing slip, but 
still the temperature of the motor dropped. So 
I wing slipped through the clouds. I had not 
planned on it, but they were 2,000 meters thick. 
I came down from 2,800 to 800 meters in some 
fifteen seconds, a rate of considerably over 250 
miles an hour. If the fog had not been so thick 
the outcome would have been different for the 
engine would not have gotten so cold, but by the 
time I could think of adjusting my motor I was 
at 400. When I found the motor would not 
work it was fifty, and over a pine wood. I tried 
to turn back to a field, but started to wing slip, 
which is death, so I straightened out, let it slow 
down a bit, and then pointed it down into the 
trees at an agle of thirty degrees. It is less 
dangerous to hit an object that way than in line 
of flight. Things happened just as I expected. 



200 DINSMORE ELY 

The plane mowed down seven or eight six-inch 
pines. The motor plowed ahead of me and the 
trees took the shock as they broke. Just before 
the machine hit the ground it pivoted on a tree 
and cut an arc, which slowed it up more. All 
this happened with the suddenness and sound of 
a stick broken over the knee, yet I was not jolted. 
The pine trees fell around me without touching 
me. The wings and framework and running 
gear and propeller were shattered, but I was not 
scratched. I was pinned in the very heart of all 
this debris, without a bump, a bruise, or a 
broken bone. Goggles on my forehead, a mir- 
ror within an inch of my face, and the glass wind- 
shield in my lap were unbroken, though the steel 
braces all about them were bent and broken. 
The gasoline tank under me did not have a leak. 
The rest of the machine was good for souvenirs. 
It was too big a mystery for me to understand. 
Yours in a horse-shoe halo. 

Son. 

March 21 y igi8. 
My Dear Mrs. Hamilton : 

It was a pleasure to hear from you, for if 
ever letters were welcome it is here. People 
are so kind in writing that I really cannot pre- 



DINSMORE ELY 201 

tend to answer as I should, but as you were so 
near my family, I hope you will forgive me if I 
let you learn the personal side of my experiences 
from them. Your letter came yesterday. The 
box has not yet arrived, but thank you for it in 
advance. 

The great German offensive began last night 
and we wait the results of the distant thunder. 
Our sector is quiet. If this is not the final scene 
of the war, I cannot look far enough ahead to 
see it. 

Aside from the war, I like my work. Won- 
derful architecture abounds. New peoples fas- 
cinate. If not a pleasure, it is a privilege to 
serve in this war. 

As ever, 

DiNSMORE Ely. 

Wednesday, April 5, igi8. 
Dear Family : 

So long since I wrote, can't remember where 
I left off. Last ten days spent as follows : 

Mar. 2^. Over German lines. 

Mar. 26. Ascension in United 'States bal- 
loon. 

Mar. 2J. Orders to leave Toul with entire 
escadrille. 



202 DINSMORE ELY 

Mar. 28. Packed and left Toul, arriving in 
Paris. 

Mar. 2g. In Paris preparing to go to Front. 

Mar. JO. Reported to aviation center near 
Paris where escadrille was to receive new equip- 
ment of planes. 

Mar. J7 — April i and 2. Reported each 
day to headquarters and returned to Paris in 
evening. 

April J. Orders to the Front in new planes. 

Reported to headquarters to find I was re- 
leased from French Army and must go to United 
States headquarters. Left for Paris and there 
received orders to go to American Army center 
in France. 

April /f. Arrived at A. A. C, was sworn in as 
second lieutenant. 

April 5. Returned to Paris, ordered clothes, 
and now await orders to action. 

With love. 

Your son. 
Lieutenant Dinsmore Ely. 

A. E. F., ^5 Ave. Montaigne^ April 5, igi8. 
Dear Family : 

You have probably heard more from me In 
the last ten days than you will in the next ten. 



DINSMORE ELY 203 

Please pardon me for not having written. 
Things have moved fast, and all the world 
strains at attention. 

What do we know of the great German of- 
fensive? The Boche has made great gains with 
suicide tolls as a price. The English have made 
splendid resistance with a retreat which will need 
explaining. And the turn of the battle came 
when the French Army arrived. It Is hoped that 
the American Army can be of assistance In the 
world's greatest battle, of which the first phase 
has lasted twelve days already. German com- 
munics say this offensive may last for months, but 
it is the final of the war. The statement was made 
when they thought the allied line was broken. 
When the German people discover that the great 
offensive failed to gain its end, they may inter- 
pret it as defeat. If the German people cannot 
be made to believe that the ground gained in 
this offensive is of more value than a place to 
bury their dead, the German Government is 
whipped. 

I went up in a balloon. Lieutenant Grant 
from Ohio, with whom I formed a friendship, 
took me up one morning from five to six-thirty. 
The great balloon made a curved outline against 
the sky above the tree tops. As we approached 



204 DINSMORE ELY 

in the morning dusk, the darkness and the night 
chill still struggling to keep off the coming day, 
many figures hustled to muffled commands. 
Then, at the order, the balloon moved out into 
the open and upward until the men clinging to 
the wet side ropes formed a circle about the 
basket on the ground. We were put into belts 
and fastened to our parachutes before getting 
into the car. Then at the command to give 
way, the car left the ground and mounted up- 
wards. Soon we were at two thousand feet, and 
the woods and machines and human forms were 
lost in the ground haze which clung in the 
hollows. 

With all the flying in the sky which I have 
done, this was the first time I had hung in the 
air. I had never realized the air was so empty 
and so still. The stillness of the mountains is 
broken by its echo. There are splashes in the 
stillness of the sea, but the air doesn't even 
breathe. Only the desert could be so silent. My 
companion spoke into his telephone in low tones, 
to test the wires. He showed me the map, and 
then pointed out the direction of the enemy lines. 
Suddenly there was a flicker of fire in the western 
horizon, like fire flies in the grass. Some time 
after, there came the distant booms. Opposi- 



DINSMORE ELY 205 



tion firing started, and for a time the duel lasted. 
But as the sun began to rise, and the mist clear, 
the firing became intermittent, and finally ceased, 
and the appalling silence seemed to bear us sky- 
ward with its pressure. I shivered. I wonder 
if the soul shivers as it leaves the earth in 
search of peace. I think I should prefer to have 
my soul stay down in the warm earth with my 
body and the kindly reaching roots of flowers 
and all the ants and friendly worms than to float 
up in that everlasting silence. It seemed high, 
too — much higher than I had ever been in an 
aeroplane, though it was only seven hundred 
meters. It was a wonderful experience — but 
give me the aeroplane, or the submarine, and 
leave the balloonist to listen for the heartbeat 
of the Sphinx. 

We had just gotten our room nicely decorated 
with curtains, rug, table cover, hanging lamps, 
and pictures when we were ordered to move ; but 
everyone was glad of the prospect to get into the 
fight. We had gone on a patrol nearly to Metz 
that day and had tried but failed to catch two 
enemy planes which were located by anti-aircraft 
shells. That evening we ate our last meal in 
Toul, and the next morning were in Paris after 
an all-night ride. 



206 DINSMORE ELY 

Paris is neither excited nor exciting. Refu- 
gees were coming in and going through. Many 
had left the city while it was being bombarded. 
All my friends had gone to various country 
places, and I could see the streets were not 
so crowded. 

I have been here for five days now. We came 
to a distributing station just outside of Paris to 
get new machines and then go into the Amiens 
sector. It took a few days for the machines to 
be prepared. I was to have a new Spad. On 
the day we expected to depart, I reported to the 
captain and he informed me that I was dismissed 
from the French Army and had a second lieu- 
tenancy in the American Army. What could 
have been more inopportune, just as I was going 
to the real Front? Well, I said good-bye to the 
escadrille and hurried to Paris and from there to 
a distant American Army center, and then back 
to Paris for more orders, and by that time I 
was officially an officer. Meanwhile, my suit 
was being made, and two days later, I was all 
dressed up in new clothes. With the assistance 
of a letter from one captain, I had obtained a 
promise from the lieutenant, the captain, 
major, colonel, and general of the Paris office 
of the Aviation Section to have me returned to 



DINSMORE ELY 207 

the French escadrllle as a detached American 
officer. As it was necessary to receive written 
orders from another distant headquarters, I 
have been waiting for them here in Paris. I 
went out yesterday to see the escadrille leave; 
they had been detained by bad weather. 

I expect to return to the French escadrille in 
two or three days. After that, I shall be an 
American officer and probably not be able to 
obtain further permissions to Paris. At present, 
my one desire is to reach the defensive Front. 
Right now, it is hard for the French mind to 
grasp how much the Americans have wanted to 
help in this defensive during their first year of 
preparation. No matter how great a thing the 
American organization is to be, if we suppose 
there are 300,000 Americans actually fighting in 
this offensive (no one knows numbers) we must 
keep things in scale by remembering that Ger- 
many alone has probably had more than a mil- 
lion and a half put out of action in this bat- 
tle alone. 

And I want to say in closing, if anything 

should happen to me, let's have no mourning in 
spirit or in dress. Like a Liberty Bond, it is an 
investment, not a loss, when a man dies for his 



208 DINSMORE ELY 

country. It is an honor to a family, and is that 
the time for weeping? I would rather leave my 
family rich in pleasant memories of my life than 
numbed in sorrow at my death. 

Your son, 

DiNSMORE. 




Dinsmore Ely's grave in Des Gonard's Cemetery, at Versailles, France 



ADDENDA 



The Services at Paris 

Dr. Alice Barlow-Brown (of Winnetka) 
was in Paris at the time of Lieut. Ely's death, 
and attended the services, which were very im- 
pressive, and which indicated the appreciation 
of the French for the personal and national 
service which we as their allies are endeavoring 
to render to them and to the common cause. 

Extracts from Dr. Brown's letter follow: 

Paris, April 24, 1918. 
Dear Mrs. Ely: 

This afternoon I realized how very proud you should feel 
that you have given to the " great cause " one of the noblest 
and best of young men. I was more impressed of this as 
I walked with many others behind the hearse and saw the 
reverence and homage paid him by every one — men, women, 
and children — to " les Americains," as the cortege moved 
along from the chapel at the hospital to the English church 
— in front of which was draped the Stars and Stripes — where 
the services were held. The French artillery escorted from 
the chapel to the church, remaining outside until the services 
were concluded — then from the church to the gates of the 
cemetery. 

209 



210 DINSMORE ELY 



After the detachment of French artillery came a detach- 
ment of U. S. marines, the chaplains, then the hearse, on 
both sides of which were members of the Aviation Corps, 
five of themi from the LaFayette Escadrille, on each side of 
these were four French artillerymen, marching with their 
guns pointed down. Behind came the pall bearers and then 
representatives of the government, the prefect of the Seine 
et Oise, representatives of the Allied Council and French 
military. Then followed civilian men and women, the rep- 
resentatives of the Y. M. C. A. and Red Cross. The services 
at the church and the grave were conducted by the English 
chaplain and a U. S. army chaplain. The songs were 
" Abide with Me " and " For All the Saints Who from Their 
Labors Rest," also a solo. 

From the church the cortege proceeded across the Place 
des Armes to the Ave. de Paris, for some distance. Here, 
while in progress, a friendly aviator descended very low 
and followed for a distance. In passing, every man bared 
his head, from the small boy of five years of age to the gray 
haired old men, every one standing reverently while the 
cortege passed. The silent tribute paid by the French was 
very touching. 

Two striking incidents occurred. At the church when we 
entered was sitting a French woman in mourning, who joined 
us in walking to the cemetery, and said that she had a deep 
sympathetic feeling for the absent parents. Asked for your 
address to write you. She had lost two sons. The other, 
an old French woman of 70 years, seeing that it was an 
American who had given his life for France, joined the pro- 
cession to pay tribute to him. 

While waiting in Versailles, I spoke to Mrs. Ovington, 
whose son was a fellow companion of Dinsmore's. She has 
been the secretary of the LaFayette Escadrille for some time 
and looks upon all the boys as her own. As soon as she heard 
of the accident, she visited the hospital, where two Y. M. 



DINSMORE ELY 211 



C. A. workers had preceded her, and found that the best 
surgeon and nurses were in attendance and everything was 
being done that was possible for the boy's comfort. He was 
taken to the hospital badly injured, with a fractured skull, 
unconscious and never regained consciousness. 

The casket was covered with the Stars and Stripes, over 
which were many beautiful floral tributes, fully as many as 
if he were at home. Two very large wreaths, containing 
the most beautiful flowers, were given by the Aviation Corps, 
one for his family, the other theirs. These were fastened to 
the sides of the hearse as it carried the remains. After the 
lowering of the casket, the bugler of the U. S. marines gave 
the last reveille. It is difficult for me to describe in detail 
all| that I want to, but I do so want to convey to you that 
if it had to be it could not have been a better testimonial of 
one country to another's countrymen. I was so impressed by 
the reverence from every one — the military, standing at 
attention and saluting, the civilians of every class, all in 
reverence, not in curiosity. 

The French feel so deeply grateful to the Americans and 
love them all. Tears were in their eyes, for they, too, have 
sacrificed much. 



I 



VALHALLA 

By Dinsmore Ely 

This poem written a few days before Lieutenant Ely's death 
was dedicated by him "To My Comrades of the French 
Escadrille, the Fighting Eagles of France; How They Fought 
and How They Died." 

Day breaks with sun on the bosom of spring. 
Motors are humming, the pilot shall fly today. 
Mists clear and find him regarding his bird 

of prey. 
With crashing roar and whirr, three airmen 

mount the sky. 

Cael, tall, and gaunt, eyes of hawk, seeing far; 
Parcontal, thrice an ace, steady aim, deadly 

fire; 
Devil Le Claire, quick as light, wheeling like 

lark at play — 
Three grow dim, turn to specks, lost in the 

morning sky. 

Off in the distant sky white bombs of thunder 

burst. 
Signs that the pilot Huns pass bounds that 

they should fear, 

212 



DINSMORE ELY 213 

Signaling avions to turn their warpath there. 
Men listen tense in groups to catch the sound 

of strife, 
The purr of distant guns, like rustling leaves 

of death. 

While minutes pass, everyone waits. 

Then in their vision sweeps, curving in steep 

descent, 

One plane returning. 
Rushes by close o'erhead, skims like a gull to 

earth, 
Races back, conies to rest; those in wait run 

to meet. 

Cael, tall and pale, unsteady of step but cool. 
Dismounts to reaching hands. Eyes of the 

hawk are dim. 
Helmet all wet with blood, fur coat all spotted 

red. 
Fall into willing hands, showing raw angry 

wounds 
To angry eyes that see how balls explosive, 

rend. 
And riddled plane reveals how near death 

spoke and fast. 



214 DINSMORE ELY 

Now Gael, in gentle hands, speaks slow to 

eager ears; 
Tells of the cloudy fray that only gods could 

see; 
How three, attacking three, put them at once 

to flight. 
Till four more by surprise, made odds with 

the Huns. 
Then, swift as hornet darts, fire-spitting eagles 

fought ; 
Wheeling high and sweeping low, hailed lead 

on foe. 

'' Quick as the light " Le Claire, ere seconds 

passed, had two, 
Falling like shrieking crows to death, three 

miles below. 
Parcontal, nearly caught, feigning right, 

wheeled to left; 
And so met another foe on him descending. 
His gun spoke balls of fire, flashing true to the 

mark. 
One more Hun fell in flames, leaving but 

smoke. 
Three were down, four remained; Gael was 

apart with three. 
Met and surrounded at each swoop and turn. 



DINSMORE ELY 215 



Le Claire and Parcontal came now like ven- 
geance sent; 

All but too late for Gael; riddled and wounded 
sore, he left the fight. 

The tall, gaunt, frame relaxed, 
Eagle eyes saw no more. 
His comrades breathed a curse. 
" Vengeance for Gael." 

Than that, more is known from the survivor. 
One Hun a prisoner in France descended. 
How for great distance combat continued 
Till the last Frenchman fell, vanquished vic- 
torious. 
Vengeance for comrades dead, dearly the 

Huns shall pay! 
Mead to the victors gone to drink in Valhalla. 



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